


Positively Glowing

by fridayslytherin



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Bad ass castiel, Boxers, College, Denial, F/M, Fights, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Geniuses, Homophobic Language, I promise, M/M, Mean Dean, Multi, Pining, Pining Castiel, Slow Build, Soul Bond, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Stalking, Tutoring, but its not with dean and cas, he's a bamf, minor though, seriously though
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-18
Updated: 2014-12-08
Packaged: 2018-01-16 04:23:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 23,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1331791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fridayslytherin/pseuds/fridayslytherin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Billions of people on the planet and everyone has a soulmate. On the day of the younger mate’s 18th birthday, both wake up with a mark representing something unique to their soulmate. However, since the mark is not always in a visible spot and could live across the world, there are many people who never find their match. Walking down the street, it was easy to tell who had never come in contact with their bonder. Dull eyes, wrinkles, and sagging stooped bodies pulled the Incompletes slowly down the street. Just taking one look at an Incomplete made most children wait with bated breath for the day they could find their other and keep themselves from being one of those hopeless zombies. </p><p>Castiel Novak and Dean Winchester are soulmates who go to the same college and don't know it. After Dean starts failing their English class and Castiel tutors him, they start to notice things are different with their relationship than if it were normal...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Soulmates and Spitstains

**Author's Note:**

> Hey so this is an adaptation from here (http://archiveofourown.org/works/706056). The author decided not to end it so I asked if I could write my own. Hopefully I did it justice!
> 
> Also, I have no idea why I named that chapter what I did. I just thought of it and I couldn't let it go.

Billions of people on the planet and everyone has a soulmate. On the day of the younger mate’s 18th birthday, both wake up with a mark representing something unique to their soulmate. However, since the mark is not always in a visible spot and could live across the world, there are many people who never find their match. Walking down the street, it was easy to tell who had never come in contact with their bonder. Dull eyes, wrinkles, and sagging stooped bodies pulled the Incompletes slowly down the street. Just taking one look at an Incomplete made most children wait with bated breath for the day they could find their other and keep themselves from being one of those hopeless zombies.

One morning in a tiny apartment just off the University of Kansas campus, Dean Winchester woke up with a burning in his shoulder. Sleepily, he sat up and rolled up the short sleeve of his Metallica tee. His mark!  He did a quiet fist pump so as to not wake his brother Sam sleeping on the other side of his thin bedroom wall but he couldn’t stop the wide grin splitting his face. Today must be his soulmate’s birthday since he was already 20. He wondered what she’d look like. Whether she’d be tall, or short. He knew she’d be beautiful, even if it was only to him. He’d been getting worried- Sammy had woken up when he was 15 with a lollipop seared into his skin. It didn't usually work that way and it wasn't uncommon for people to wait years before their soulmate became mature enough for the mark to appear, but after two years… well, maybe he wouldn’t have to worry about his soul mate’s identity much longer. 

 In a house, in another state- Illinois to be precise, Castiel Novak woke up on an otherwise ordinary Thursday morning with the imprint of a key, a burn scar, on his hipbone. He didn’t notice it until he got into the shower. It had been slightly itchy, but he was glad there hadn't been any actual heat- a key would have been just as bad as a branding iron. He smiled, relieved.  Somewhere in the world was a person meant for him. Even though he knew everyone had a soulmate, he’d been worried that maybe he’d be the mistake, one person born without a soulmate.  He wondered when he'd meet this person, wondered what the mark they wore would look like, where it would be.  What had been considered a part of him so deeply ingrained that it marked his true love. 

Castiel pulled himself out of his daydreaming to finish up his shower and nearly run down the stairs. He almost knocked over his brother, Gabriel, in his haste to get down the stairs.

“Whoa there Cassanovak!” Gabriel teased. “There’s no way you don’t have your mark with that much spring in your step. Share with the class.”

Castiel sighed and tried to tone down his excitement. “Gabriel, I have no spring in my step. I am merely happy that I am finally and adult.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Really”

“Okay”

“Gabriel”

“I didn’t say anything. But I am now. You can’t come down just yet; Mum’s not done with your ‘Adult Breakfast Supreme’” Gabriel actually made air quotes and then reached into the pocket of his sweats and pulled out a lollypop. “So what’s your mark? Where is it? You know, you still haven’t let me show you mine! I know it’s a tramp stamp bu-“

“You mark is far to low to be considered a tramp stamp, Gabe. Besides, I’ll show my mark to everyone at breakfast.”

“So you did get a mark!”

The sound of their mother floated from the kitchen. “Boys. Play nice and come sit down. We have a birthday to celebrate!”

Gabriel gave one last smirk at his brother and jumped over the side of the stair case. Castiel rolled his eyes and walked down the last 12 steps and into the kitchen.

 

************************************************************************************************************************************

 

The rest of the school year passed by extremely slowly for Castiel. Now that he had his mark he was always on the lookout for someone, anyone, who looked like they could be his mate. There had been awkward party almost-hookups and a few shed tears but Castiel was determined to find his bonder. He had actually been accepted to the University of Kansas that fall, early decision, to study Theology and English literature. However, he was starting to get nervous that he hadn’t already found his mate. Lots of people either dropped out of their first year or took a gap year to go searching for their mates but Castiel had been so sure that his mate would come to him. Maybe he was wrong.

Pulling up in his red jeep, Castiel surveyed the campus. There were students everywhere, running around and squealing as they hugged friends hello and family goodbye. Cas had had a going away party in Illinois before he left, so it was just him and his clunker full of boxes. Sighing, he slammed his car door shut and walked over to check-in.

“Hey watch out!”

Cas just had time to turn around before instincts kicked in and he caught a baseball inches before it hit him in the face. He looked up to see a guy a few years older skidding to a stop in front of him.

“That was really impressive”

“I assure you it was nothing,” Castiel dismisses the compliment and turns around.

“Wanna join our team? We could use some of that ‘nothing.’”

A hand lightly touches his shoulder and Cas turns around. He looks up into the man’s face and was met with brown eyes to match the color of his skin and frown lines.

“Come on it’ll be fun.”

“I have no interest in playing sports.”

“Okay man. Hey, if you change your mind, I’m floor 3 in building A. Name’s Henrikson, in case you were wondering.”

Castiel nodded stiffly, feeling uncomfortable with all this conversation so quickly after his arrival. “I’ll think about it.”

Henrikson’s face lit up and displayed smile lines that Castiel hadn’t noticed earlier. He gave a tight lipped half smile-half grimace and finally walked away.

Getting set up in his room was rather easy. After lugging all the boxes into the dorm room, he hung up his clothes and went to take a shower. By the time he got back there was a suitcase on the other bed. Looking around Cas noticed a man with a mullet leaning under one of the two desks in the room.

Closing the door and clearing his throat to get the man’s attention, Castiel walked across the room. “Hello. I’m your roommate, Castiel”

A head poked out from under the desk, bringing out a dazed smile and a _lot_ of plaid. “well hello there. I’m Ash.” He gestured to the desk, “I’m just setting up my computers. I forgot one of my adaptor cords so I’m just trying to reroute a couple of things.”

Castiel, who had just gotten his first smart phone and laptop that week, nodded. “Well I wish you the best of luck”

Ash snorted. “Alright thanks. Hey, my friend’s throwing a beginning of year party at his apartment. It’ll just be a couple people and it’ll be better if you meet them now. You’ll see a lot of them if we stay roommates.”

Castiel contemplated the offer for a moment. But after driving straight from Illinois to Kansas and having to set up and talk to all the different people, he was getting tired. He told Ash so.

“You drove straight here? Damn. No wonder you don’t want to hang. Another time?”

Cas nodded. “I suppose.”

It was a little while longer before he got to go to bed. Ash talked the entire time he was getting ready to go to his friend “Dean’s” house and Castiel didn’t want to ruin the relationship with his roommate on the first day. As soon as Ash closed the door and left Cas was sighing with relief and tumbling into bed. He had his first class tomorrow and wanted to do well. It was Shakespeare 101 for his English Credit.

Fortunately, so was Dean.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay. Now that you've read the first chapter and may or may not be hooked I'm warning you now that I get distracted very easily and have never finished a fanfiction. However, I have only written two others and they were both because I was dared to and I didn't actually ship or care about anything that I was writing...
> 
> Give as many critiques as you'd like. I might not follow all of them but if you have an idea of where you would like this to go and I like it I might add it in... 
> 
> And one more thing before you're off reading more wonderful fics: I'm thinking about drawing pics for each chapter. Idk if I will but I think it would be pretty cool. I'm not a terrible drawer ( I had one of my pictures shown at a university) but I do draw slowly so that might make it more time between updates.
> 
>  
> 
> Okay actually, also (again, I know) if you want to ask me a question or just talk to me I'm more likely to notice the message on my tumblr: http://mooniemermaid.tumblr.com/
> 
> I'm done for real now, I swear...


	2. Red Ink and the Smell of Failure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean hosts a party for the beginning of the school year, confident everything will go well. However, he almost immediately starts doing poorly in Shakespeare 101, his mandatory English Lit class

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey so I did draw a picture but its a crappy 10 minute character analysis of what I think cas looks like as a teenager which is basically just some random photo of Misha minus wrinkles and my dad says it looks like a young David Bowie but who really knows?... I hope I'll have a better picture to share next week! :)

 

 

 

 

When Ash got to the party, he was the last one there. He had had a great time ribbing his new roommate and then he got stuck in a traffic jam. He skipped the elevator in favor of skipping up the stairs two at a time. By the time Ash was at the door he was sweating significantly and everyone was already through their first beer.

“Heyyy look who decided to show up!” Spread out across two couch seats and her roommates legs, Jo looked like the epitome of a cowgirl with cutoff shorts and more than enough plaid to shake your fist at.

She rose up and gave Ash a peck on the lips.

“Alright, Alright. That’s enough” Henrikson said from the couch.

After hugs were handed out and everyone had sat back down, Henrikson started up a new conversation.

“Guys. Me and Jo and some other guys were playing ball out front of sign-ins and she threw this horrendous shot-“

“Shut your face, Victor! The sun was in my eyes!”

“Sure sure.” Henrikson waved a hand dismissively. “Anyway I turned around to see where it went and it was going straight towards this new kid and you know what he did when I yelled ‘Watch out’?”

“Do I care?” Victor rolled his eyes and looked over at the party’s wonderful host, none other than Dean Winchester, who was leaning against the doorway between the living room and the kitchen.

“Yes. It was fucking incredible. One second he’s looking down and the next he’s caught the ball right before it hit his face!”

Jo nodded. “That was some ninja shit right there.”

Dean grunted. “I don’t believe you.”

“Whatever,” Henrikson laughed, “I’m going to find him again and get him to play on our team.”

“Okay well what’s his name?” Ash asked.

Victor blinked. “I don’t know.”

“Congrats, man” Dean snickered.

“No. Shut up. He had like black hair and the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen an-“

“I sense a man’s who in love!” Jo squealed.

Victor leaned forward in his chair. “Dude, seriously, wha-“

“hey,” Ash interrupted before they could get any further, “the guy. Was his voice really deep?”

Victor slowly moved back in his chair. “Yeah.”

Ash nodded. “And did he squint a lot?”

“Yeah. You know him?”

Ash nodded again. “I think you’re talking about my roommate, Ca-“

The door to the apartment burst open and Sam Winchester rushed in, dragging his friend Kevin along behind him.

“Dean, you’re never going to believe what happened!” he panted.

Dean moved forward from his spot in the doorway. “What’s up, Sammy?”

 “We got into Debate Club!”

Dean grinned and rushed forward to give his little brother a hug. “I knew you would, Sammy! You’re good at everything!”

“Yeah!,” exclaimed Jo, “now you can help Dean with English Lit!”

Dean huffed. “Jo I don’t need help with English! I’m going to do just fine!”

He was wrong so wrong. The first day of class the next morning started with the students turning in their summer assignment which Dean didn’t even know about let alone do. The teacher from Hell as Dean liked to call him, and Crowley as everyone else did, refused to let him make up the assignment. Then he bombed the test because he’d stayed up all night working with Sammy on his science project. Then he failed his analytics essay because he couldn’t analyze the plot twist at the end of the book if he hadn’t read that far. So two weeks later, Dean was definitely fucked. Why did he even have to take the class anyway? He wasn’t going into an English major, he was going to be a Mechanical Engineer! It was pointless. He didn’t need to know the consequences of anaphoras in postmodernistic literature!

Dean had been sitting in his car, a ’67 chevy impala, for a good 30 minutes just staring down at his English grade posted on his phone. 32%. Fuck. There was no way he could come back from that. But he had to try. College was his way to prove everyone wrong, that he was more than the random new kid bad-boy he was all throughout highschool. And college was his way of making Sammy happy. And a happy Sammy was the only kind of Sammy Dean wanted to see. He sighed and ran a hand down his face. He needed to sort this shit out. Looking around a sign stood out from the others. Perfect.

The Library was not somewhere Dean went often. Okay so he’d never stepped foot inside before now, big deal. He could do this. Taking a deep breath, Dean walked over to the health desk and pulled out his million dollar smile.

“Hi ma’am. Could you tell me what books I should check out if I need help in English Lit?”

The librarian, a small girl with oddly staring eyes and a nametag that read “Becky,” looke up at him. “well I don’t know about a book but we do have tutoring.”

Dean grimaced. He didn’t want more people knowing about his failure than absolutely necessary. “I think I’ll pass. Can you just show me to the Shakespeare for Dummies section?”

Becky’s eye got a scary glint to them. “Honey. I’m not going to say this again. We have tutoring. Sign yourself up. I’m one of the tutors myself. I’ll work wherever with you. We could even sit outside. You could bring Sam-“

Dean started and stared at her. “Wait what?”

Becky flushed bright red and started opening and closing her mouth like a fish. Dean started to back away slowly when he bumped into someone behind him.”

“What’s going on here?” a whiskey-roughened voice said.

Dean turned around. There stood a young man with bags under his eyes that prada would be jealous of and a nametag that read “Chuck.”

Dean suppressed a groan. Going into the library was easily the worst decision he’s ever made.

Becky piped up, “I was just offering to tutor him in English.”

The boy name Chuck winced. Then he beckoned to Dean and said “let me talk to you alone for a minute.”

They stepped outside and once Chuck checked that Becky hadn’t followed them out, he turned to Dean. “I am so sorry about that. Becky’s a little-“

“Crazy?” Dean supplied.

Chucked chuckled (lol) “I was going to say ‘fucking insane’ actually.”

Dean laughed in surprise. Maybe not all librarians were like Becky.

Chuck continued, “Well with the way she introduced herself I’d say you want to get the hell out of here and never return but I’m going to be honest. You don’t look like the kind of guy who goes into a library and since you asked about tutoring I’d say that you’re failing a class.

Dean shook his head. “Seriously, man, I don’t think I-“

“No. Hear me out. We have student volunteer tutors and you look at the forms and pick a name and we give them your contact info and you work together. Its worked for a lot of people. Just give the list a look.”

Dean sighed. “Yeah, sure, fine. I’ll take a peak.”

Chuck smiled. I’ll be back out in a sec. I’m assuming you don’t want to go back in there.”

“Yeah not really,” Dean laughed.

Chuck went back inside and when he came back out he was holding a pen and a clip board. When Dean was handed the list he checked the English section for someone who could help in Shakespeare. There were two people: one named Bela Talbot and the other named Castiel Novak. Shaking his head at the weird name, Dean looked away from Castiel’s name to Bela’s. She could be hot and that would be a double bonus.

“Hey I think I’ll sign up to tutor with Bela Talbot actually.”

Chuck looked over at Dean, confused. Then he grabbed the list and looked at it.

“I’m sorry, Dean, but Bela dropped out several days ago. You can go with… um… Castiel.”

Considering his options for a second and not liking the looks of it he relented.

“Alright. Sign me up.”

Chuck smiled. “Great.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! I actually posted another chapter! My goal was to post it on Monday but its 35 minutes into Tuesday... well I didn't sleep yet so I'm gonna call it Monday. I'm going to do my best to keep up the once a week updates.
> 
> Also, I'm sorry if the chapter ends awkwardly, I wanted to write a lot more but I'm tired and I'm taking a test tomorrow and I just couldn't do it. I know i know I could have just waited and uploaded after school tomorrow (or actually, later today) but I have powder puff practice tomorrow til 5:30 and I also don't want to ruin my goal so soon.
> 
> And in case it caught your attention and curiosity, Powderpuff is this stupid thing where the girls play football and the boys cheerlead and its beautiful and hilarious. So the game's on April 1st and I'm one of the people that stands in a line in front ( i literally have no idea what anything is called in football) and I get hit a lot. So yay I'm really excited. We even get our own jerseys! Mine is number 97 and it says "Pott Bott" as the nickname. And before you go and think I'm a drug addict or whatever, pott is the ending of my last name so... yea...
> 
> any way, feed back is always appreciated and I promise the next chapter's picture and writing will be better. Well... probably...


	3. So a Boxer, a Robot, & a Tutor Walk Into a Bar...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> College was going well for Castiel. His classes were a breeze, his roommate wasn’t intrusive, and he hadn’t yet made a fool of himself in any way. Yes, college was going well.  
> Except for today.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Sorry for not posting last Monday. I'm trying to keep a once-a-week schedule but it is a hard task. Anyway, this one is extra fucking long just to make it up. 
> 
> Also, I apologize for the last chapter... It was so terribly written. I was sick and tired and I didn't want to let you down so I just wrote whatever and I posted it. But, I posted it so I'm not going back and fixing it. This was my mistake and I'm not going to just rewrite a chapter whenever, that's not how it works. (Just so you understand how out there the last chapter was, Becky wasn't even going to be in this story... now she is and I've got a funny way to make it work).
> 
> Any way, enjoy!

College was going well for Castiel. His classes were a breeze, his roommate wasn’t intrusive, and he hadn’t yet made a fool of himself in any way. Yes, college was going well.

Except for today. His best friend, Balthazar, had decided that morning to tell him that he wouldn’t be coming to see him. They had originally planned to spend one weekend each month driving to the others residence and relaxing. Castiel had been looking forward to this day for the past week. Hardly any time had gone by at all, but he missed seeing a face that he knew longer than the beginning of the month.

Castiel growled as he unlocked the door to his dorm and threw himself onto his bed. Balthazar should have left early last night, and didn’t even call Cas until now. Apparently he wanted to come but his new friends were doing “a bloody incredible thing, Cassie” and he had to stay because “I’d be seeing them more often than you so I have to get them to like me, you understand.” Unfortunately, Cas didn’t understand, but he was used to it. Balthazar had always been the sort of friend who was everywhere at once. He jumped from place to place quicker than bunnies popping out kids and it usually suited Castiel just fine. Cas often felt a strong desire to be alone and it often coincided perfectly with Balthazar’s quests to do everything. This time just wasn’t one of them.

Sighing, Castiel raised his head from where it was smashed into his pillow. So what if his best friend was blowing him off for his new friends? Castiel had plenty of things he could do. Sure, maybe he hadn’t made any new friends, or even tried, but— his eyes caught sight of the movies he had rented the day before in preparation for Balthazar’s arrival. A strange pain lanced through his stomach. A mixture of anger, disappointment, jealousy…. And loneliness?

Castiel Novak wasn’t someone who felt lonely. He had one friend since he was three and he had never even considered making new ones, not even when Balthazar became the most popular boy at his high school, not even when Balthazar left for that swanky British boarding school for sixth and seventh grade, not ever. He had _a_ friend and that was enough. Until it wasn’t.

 _This is ridiculous_ , Castiel thought, mashing his head back into the pillow. _It never bothered you before. Why let it bother you now?_

Time passed slowly, or maybe it passed quickly. Castiel lay there with his face in the pillow, the air he sucked in hot and the fabric around his mouth wet, when he heard the key turn in the door. He sighed. He just wanted to be alone. _No you don’t_.

Ash crashed into the room, unaware of Castiel’s distress. He had been rushing around all morning and the only reason Cas had been putting up with it before was because he was rushing a bit as well. Now though, he was just annoyed. Cas listened to the hurried rustling of his roommate for several minutes longer before he couldn’t stand it anymore.

He rolled over and got out of bed, stomping over to his closet and practically ripping it off of his hinges. Cas had no idea why but he was just so _angry_. There was one sure fire way he knew of blowing off steam, one that he tried to avoid. Boxing.

When Castiel was younger, his "free time” almost constantly consisted of fighting. His mother had been a boxer and his father an MMA fighter. Together, they forced both him and Gabriel to learn. Summers were training boot camps and sparring in the backyard. To make the sparring more difficult, there were no rules. Once, Gabriel had had to go to the hospital because he kicked Castiel in the balls and Cas retaliated by jabbing him in the eye so hard it started bleeding. Gabe had to get stitches on his eyeball and wear and eye patch for 6 weeks.

So yeah, Castiel tried to avoid fighting now that he had the freedom to do so, but it was so hard. Hours every day for years ingrained a love for violence that Castiel hated with a burning passion. Unfortunately, it was the largest part of his life until he went to college. He had actually met Balthazar in a toddler fighting class (who the fuck came up with that anyway?) and their parents had bonded and carpooled them from fight to fight. Nearly every child Castiel came across loved it. They smiled when they were disqualified for being to violent and they cheered when someone was seriously injured. Balthazar and Gabriel were never quite as ruthless, but they were much cleverer and willing to hurt others than Castiel was. But that doesn’t mean that Castiel didn’t fight. Boy oh boy, did he fight. There were fights where the entire stadium went silent because of Castiel. Those were the memories he hated the most.

Cas shook his head and reached down to grab his running shoes from the back of the closet. He nearly threw himself on his bed to tie them up when he realized there was no more rustling sounds. He glanced up to see Ash staring at him with an odd expression on his face.

“What?” Castiel practically growled.

Ash shook his head and rubbed the back of his neck, “Nothing, man. You just look a bit more uptight than usual?” Castiel rolled his eyes. “Well I don’t know. Maybe you and I should just stay here? You don’t look like you should be going anywhere. Hey maybe we could watch one of the DVDs on your desk or---- hey, Cas, wait!”

The door slammed behind him and Castiel felt a sort of grim satisfaction. He honestly didn’t know why this whole thing with Balthazar was making him so angry. The other times Balthazar had cancelled hadn’t even registered but now he just wanted to punch Balthazar in the face and force him to hang out. Castiel jogged out to his jeep and pulled out his gear bag. He had put it in to please his father, he had had no intention of using it, but now he was tying it tightly over his back and preparing to run the 8 miles to the gym top speed.

 The workout was rather unsatisfying. Of course, there were punching bags and a ring, but neither had the amount of competition that Castiel was hoping for. He wanted to punch his anger out and yet every punch to his opponent made him twice as frustrated. Growling, Cas lazily swiped at his opponent, knocking him completely out of the ring and unconscious. Castiel rolled his eyes and left the ring to grab his belongings. He’d have to relax another way.

Castiel stepped outside and took off, weaving and dipping between tired college students. The sun was hotter and the air heavier but Castiel relished it. It was silly, really, his reaction. And emotions were never his forte. So he shook his head to clear his thoughts and turned into a random path leading into a park. Right now, 8 miles wasn’t enough. And the path wasn’t vigorous enough. The trees became denser as Castiel slipped off the dirt trail. Light filtered through the trees irregularly as he pushed ahead. His sudden anger was finally starting to fade and he was feeling the clarity he got during a fight. Balthazar didn’t mean to hurt his feelings. There had been many times when Balthazar had cancelled and Cas had been relieved. Neither of them could have predicted that he would react this way.

Breathing hard, Castiel felt the last of his anger melt away. His running slowed to a jog, and then to a stop. The forest was so dense here that the sky could hardly be seen. Stupidly, Cas hadn’t been running in a straight line. Welp, he was fucking screwed. _Now look where your emotions got you_ he scolded himself.

After finishing the rest of his water, Castiel was still incredibly lost and quickly losing hope. He was good with directions, but not when he couldn’t use anything as a reference. At least none of the trees looked familiar, so he wasn’t walking in circles. He sat down at the base of a tree. He could see it now. The headlines, “Dumb College Student Found Dead in Park.” He hoped that at least Gabriel would laugh.

“Ahhh girl look at that body, ahh girl look at that body, ahhhh girl look at that body—I WORK OUT.”

 _What the hell?_ Castiel raised his head from where it had been resting between his knees and surveyed the scenery. Slowly he pushed himself off from the trunk and stumbled through a particularly dense patch of trees and onto a path! The music was coming from a college student a few steps ahead of Cas who was frantically trying to fish his phone out of his bag.

“Excuse me?” Castiel croaked. He wrinkled his face, cleared his throat, and tried again. “Could you tell me the way to the A dorms?”

The man jumped and turned around.

“Holy shit! What the hell did you do to yourself?”

“I was emotionally compromised and thought it best to blow off steam away from my peers.”

“Well… you succeeded.”

Castiel stared at the man for a couple moments. Then he shifted. “Could you tell me the way to the A dorms?”

“Hey man, that’s a little far… you know what. The library’s about a minute walk from here. I work there and I can totally get you some water and food and maybe even a ride.”

Castiel attempted to smile. “Thank you.”

“Yeah, no problem. My name’s Chuck.”

“And I am Castiel.”

“Well Castiel, lets get going then.”

The library was beautiful. Cas craned his neck in every direction to look at all of the books on the surprisingly elaborate shelves and the light fixtures dripping from the ceiling. Chuck motioned for him to follow into the back room. This room was much simpler with cream walls and fake marble flooring. A basket of plums and apricots sat on a large desk at the side of the room. Castiel plucked up an apricot and dropped into one of the plush chairs dotting the space. Chuck opened the fridge in the corner and pulled out a large bottle of water. He strode across the room and handed it to Cas, who accepted it with a smile.

Castiel was well on his way to finishing his third apricot when Chuck started fidgeting. He had overestimated his welcome. Looking up at Chuck to apologize and thank him for his help, a clipboard was thrust in his line of vision. It was a sign-up sheet for tutors. Cas frowned. How did Chuck know he was doing well in his classes? His face said as much and Chuck rubbed the back of his neck.

“While you were eating I put your name into the college website. You’re really smart. And I was wondering if you would volunteer to help out struggling students? I mean, you don’t have to, but I saw you looking at the library and this gives you an excuse to come back…”

He trailed off and stared awkwardly at the ceiling. Castiel contemplated it for a moment. The library _was_ beautiful, and this would be a good chance to attempt to make friends. Plus, he still hadn’t found his soulmate and it wouldn’t hurt to look in such a public place as the library. He nodded at Chuck. Why not?

The clipboard felt unusually heavy in Castiel’s hands. He got a sudden chill as if this moment was important. His signature was perfect on the paper, not a loop out of place. Chuck thanked him and they got up and left the room. Cas was feeling much better and was in the midst of warding Chuck off from giving him a ride when Chucks face blanched slightly and he mouthed the word ‘fuck’ under his breath.

“You know what? It has been great talking to you but my coworker Becky has an unhealthy obsession with that student’s little brother and I need to save him from her craziness.”

Castiel squinted. “Of course. I remember the directions that you gave me. I will be able to find my way home.”

With that Cas turned around and left the building, Chuck practically running over to save a certain Dean Winchester from his psycho coworker.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, in case any of you care about my personal life, last week was powder puff! We lost 38-0...... ouch. Actually though, several funny things came out of this. 1) there is going to be a picture a me getting punched in the chest published in the yearbook. 2)I had a fucking great time (even though if I had balls they would have frozen off it was so cold). 3) my posters for the hallways were the best and I posted them on my tumblr if you want to check them out (http://mooniemermaid.tumblr.com/post/81034408874/posters-for-powderpuff-the-whole-hallway-was#notes)...
> 
> That is all. Live long and prosper and all that.  
> ...wait, wrong fandom.


	4. A Fearful Glance & a Lap Dance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean and Castiel have their first tutoring session when someone pops by.
> 
> We learn a little more about Sam.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god. Please don't shoot me. I am so sorry that it has been so long. I would give an excuse but i'm not going to... just know that it is completely 100% my fault that you missed 4 chapters of pg and i'll try to make it up to you.
> 
> On the other hand. Here is some writing that I did.

Sam Winchester was always the exception. 4 years younger than Dean, he was barely 17 now and he already had his mark. Everyone got their mark on the day of the younger mate’s birthday and yet Sam had woken one morning when he was 15 to find a lollipop scar starting under his collar bone and down the middle of his chest. To say it had been a surprise would have been a severe understatement.

There were telephone calls and doctor’s appointments and DNA tests and reporters and a few shed tears. And confusion. Lots of confusion. This wasn’t supposed to happen. This never _had_ happened. No one in the history of ever had gotten their mark before they turned 18. People were shocked. People were astounded. It would be the biggest story in the worl—one suing match later and the story was put down. All articles relating to Sam receiving his mark early were erased and a computer virus that’s soul purposed was to delete any evidence pertaining to his mark swept the nation.

Sam became invisible. Well, he tried. But being 6’2” and still growing at the age of 15 made it hard to blend in. The mark had to be hidden. There was waterproof makeup in the bathroom for beach trips and hot days when Sam didn’t want to wear a high collared shirt. He didn’t know how it had happened. No one did. It wasn’t supposed to happen that way but on the nights when he thought about it so much he couldn’t sleep, Dean would lay down next to him and whisper, “Better it early than never at all.”

John had snapped. It wasn’t supposed to be possible and he clung to that fact with every fiber of his being. Sam was no longer welcome home. So they moved. John had made the boys stay with a woman called Ellen a couple times when they were younger, so Dean stole the impala while he was passed out and they drove straight to her little place in Illinois. Within a month they had their own apartment. A month after that and Dean had graduated high school. Sam just hoped that he had been forgotten. He hoped that no one had seen the papers.

In Illinois there was only one person who had read the papers before they had been deleted. Her name was Becky Rosen. Her birthday had been wild, her friends stayed up all night writing kidnap fan fiction and eating candy and when she read the headline of their towns dinky online newspaper the next morning, she almost spit out her coffee. That must be him. It had to be. Her _mate_. He had gotten his mark on the day of her birthday. What other proof did she need? And the mark? A lollypop! She totally ate a lollypop yesterday! And sure it was weird that he had gotten his mark before his 18 th birthday but people always called her weird so that must mean something!

And then she saw him in Illinois. If that wasn’t a sign from God then she didn’t know what was. But she couldn’t get close to him. He was wary of people and she noticed that he had covered her mark on him. She went home and cried when she saw that. How could he not want his mate? He had to know that without her he would become an incomplete! And all of the articles about him were gone so she couldn’t start a conversation from that. So she watched. And watched. And a year went by. And she joined the college that Sam’s brother, Dean, went to in hopes of bumping into him in the halls. She had to talk to Sam. Maybe if she tripped and pulled down the collar of his shirt. Then she could ask about it. But the right moment never arose.

 

Dean was nervous. Not once in his entire life had he ever asked for help for himself. Sure he asked for Sam but if he had a problem, he’d figure it out or deal. So yea, he was a little nervous. After signing up, Dean had done a little digging. Castiel was a freak. Some rich family gave birth to a genius rowdy kid and threw him into everything. Castiel was insane. He had been given the opportunity to skip a grade twice, but decided to graduate with the kids his age. He took every AP that the school had to offer and his last year of school was just independent study, art, and several sports teams. He had literally taken every course that the high school had to offer and gotten As in every single one. Dean had every right to call him a freak. And he didn’t even mention his outside activities! Fighting. Boxing, Karate, Tai Kwon Do, MMA, anything like that. There was even a fan page! Curious, Dean had scrolled through the site and clicked on a link. It had been a video of Castiel fighting. He was ruthless and frankly, Dean was _scared_ of the way he fought. Of all the people he had to have tutor him. This was a mess.

He had seen Castiel in his English class the next day and nearly fell out of his chair. Castiel sat almost completely across the room, silent the entire time, and when Dean passed by him at the end of class, his latest test grade was 100%. So the whole smart thing was true then.

Well, it was too late to change anything without being a total douche and, even though Dean considered just not showing up, he was sitting at a table at the café next to the library when Castiel walked in. In a fucking huge tan trench coat. Where did he even _get_ something like that? Why was it so loose? Oh god, what if he put weapons in there to threaten Dean with so he’d study more?

Castiel looks around the room squinting at every moving thing in the café. His eyes turned to Dean’s, whose heart seized in his chest in fear and he flicked his eyes down to the table. This was a terrible idea. Dean should just get up because Castiel doesn’t know who he is so it shouldn’t be that hard to— _what the fuck_

Dean stares wide eyed at Castiel for a moment. He’s sitting across from Dean. How did he know? Cas tilts his head to the side, kind of like a puppy which is a really odd thing to compare him to but really it fits somehow, and squints again.

“You are afraid of me.”

Dean starts. He was _so_ not prepared for this. Why did Bella have to quit. All he wanted was a hot chick to help him pass his classes!

“Well, yeah. How did you even know that I’m the person you’re supposed to be tutoring?”

Castiel sat still for several seconds just staring at him. Dean shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. He felt like Castiel was circling him for a fight. Then Castiel shrugged and replied, “You have the same look someone gets when I face them in a competition so I figured you researched me. I am correct?”

Dean swallowed. “Uh… yeah man. Nice one.”

“So what in particular do you not understand about Shakespeare?”

“Uh…”

“How about we just start on what we’re doing in class right now?”

 

The tutoring session was… great, actually. By the end, not only did Dean completely understand the play they were working on, he learned about the last play they did as well. Castiel was a great teacher and after he got past the staring, Dean really enjoyed his company.

Luckily for Dean, Crowley loved giving assignments and a month later, Dean was sitting at the same table as his first tutoring session with Castiel, logging into his grades online. He held his breath as the page loaded and—57%. Still not fabulous but moving his grade up over 20% in a month was great, spectacular even. 

“Hey,” Castiel said as he sat down across from Dean and taking out their latest assignment. Since they hit it off so well they had taken to doing their homework together. Dean beamed at him.

“I have a 57 in the class!”

Castiel froze, surprised. He knew Dean was doing well of course but 20% in a month? He looked up to smile at Dean when his eyes caught sight of someone outside. His entire face fell slightly before it went up into a hopeful little smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Dean turned in his seat just as the door to the café opened and a blonde man with an _extremely_ low-cutting shirt walked in and over to their table, ignoring the empty chair in favor of plopping down right in Castiel’s lap. Castiel rolled his eyes immediately.

“Balth. Get off.”

‘Balth’ grinned cockily and swung his legs sideways, pinning Castiel’s arm against the side-rest. He glanced at it and tutted.

“Now now Cassie, my love. You’ve been getting soft. I have just the thing. There an MMA competition 4 miles out from here tomorrow and I’ve signed us both up. Raphael’s going to be there.”

Raphael was Castiel’s biggest competition. She loved to play dirty and wasn’t afraid to hurt someone permanently to win a fight. Year after year, any competition that they entered in, one would end up in first and the other in second and it was about even for who was in which place. But Castiel wasn’t really interested. He hadn’t seen Balthazar (or even heard from him) since he called and cancelled their weekend. Suddenly he’s sitting on Castiel’s lap when he should be in another state and he’s trying to talk about _fighting_?

Balthazar looked Castiel in the eye when he didn’t answer, and nearly jerked away in surprise. It was almost comical the way his eyes widened and his mouth opened for a second before he exclaimed, “Castiel James Novak, did you _miss_ me?”

Cas looked away, practically embarrassed. He really had missed Balthazar. He hadn’t even missed Balthazar when he went to a different boarding school for two years and here he was feeling sentimental about the friend he hadn’t seen in a month. He glanced over at Dean to see him wearing an odd expression on his face.

“Balthazar, this is Dean, a classmate I’m tutoring. Dean, this is my friend, Balthazar.

“Hello Dean. You seem a little angry over there. I can move into your lap if you’re jealous of all the attention I’m giving Cassie.”

Dean shakes his head. “Oh I’m fine where I am thanks.”

“Well if you say so. You know, you guys have been working together for a while now. I think you should work on your friendship. Work goes faster when you like each other. How about you come to Cassie’s comp tomorrow. Unless you tend to faint at the sight of blood. Then stay away.”

Dean bristled. “Seriously, stop.” He turned to Cas, “I don’t see why you’re friends with this douche nozzle but I’ll come to your competition if you want.”

Truthfully, Dean had been dying to see Castiel fight. He’d watched more videos of him at tournaments and was blown away. Castiel made fighting and art. He turned it into a dance. It was absolutely incredible. Castiel was incredible.

Castiel smiled at Dean, his little twitch of his lips and the real smile up in his eyes. “If you’d like to come then I’ll be leaving at 5 am tomorrow morning so I’ll get to the competition on time.”

“Oh so you _do_ know about the competition,” Balthazar teased.

Castiel shrugged. “I was merely looking into it” he said. He turned to Dean. “Will you be joining us?”

Dean contemplated going for a moment. On one hand, he would be spending the day with Balthazar and Castiel and Balthazar was a douche and Dean knew when he’d barely even opened his mouth. And Castiel was cool but they barely knew each other. On the other hand, Dean _really_ wanted to see Castiel fight.

“I’m in” he grinned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AArgh okay so that was terrible. I hope you are getting used to my horrendous writing because it isn't getting any better. You may have noticed (you probably didn't) that I changed Sam's age. I didn't like that there wasn't a 4 year difference between Sam and Dean's ages so I just changed a word or two in the first chapter and tried to fill the plot hole with a storyline that I actually kind of love...
> 
> I had my AP Calc test! Wooo! Fuck it was hard but I think I got a 4 or a 5 so I feel pretty good. Any way, its been a while. How you guys been? Did you miss me? Did you shed a tear every time you saw that I didn't post a chapter? No but seriously, how you guys doing? Finals? School? Stress? I understand. 
> 
> Just so you know I can write a lot better than this but I don't know where to go with this story. If you remember I asked if I could finish someone else's fic and now its barely recognizable... but I do have an outline for a fic of my own design. I've got about 16 pages of notes ( this one has 3... i know) and I haven't even decided how they will fall for each other ( i have a thing for slow build okay?). I kind of want to start that but I can barely handle one project let alone two and I don't want to rush through this one so badly that it somehow becomes even worse quality... so idk...
> 
> Anywho, hope you liked the chapter. Come talk to me on tumblr any time you'd like. I'll most likely be on there. And have a lovely week! Don't be comment shy!


	5. Marks & Bruises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a cup of coffee, a bucket of ice, and slapping himself several times in the face, Dean was still a zombie. This was going to be a pain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ladies and gentlemen! After waiting months for her sorry ass to get moving again its finally here! The big! The wondrous! The next chapter of Positively Glowing!!!! 
> 
> Yeah seriously sorry though. I was a bit of a mess and then I was in Thailand. Anyway, my sorry excuses can be found at the end of the chapter (which I made 3x as long by way of an apology). Enjoy!

4:30 was _way_ too early to get up in the morning. Dean groaned and rolled off of his bed right onto the floor. Ugh. After a cup of coffee, a bucket of ice, and slapping himself several times in the face, Dean was still a zombie. This was going to be a pain.

Dean’s phone buzzed and he jumped one legged across the room to put on his pants while talking to Castiel.

“Dean, love!” Balthazar exclaimed in his loud, obnoxious manner. “ We’re in front of your dorm. If you could just hurry up a bit that would be great.”

Hanging up without answering, Dean rolled his eyes and stuck his phone between his teeth to zip himself up before moving it to his back pocket.. Locking the door behind him he zipped over to the elevator and mashed the button a few times. When it got to his floor he stepped inside and the few moments it took him to get downstairs were used to fix his hair and make himself look awake enough that Balthazar wouldn’t be able to call him out.

A red jeep was waiting in front of his apartment building and if Dean had ever had to guess what type of car either of them drove he would never have thought of that. However, getting inside, it was so obviously Castiel’s. There was nothing out of the ordinary. No wrappers or water bottles or even a definite scent, but it was castiel all the same. It was like a friend getting a small haircut and looking at them and knowing there’s something there, but not knowing what.

Cas nodded at Dean and promptly turned around to start up the car. Loud rap music immediately began to play and for whatever reason Dean couldn’t hold  back a grin because that was somehow so undeniably Castiel as well.

Aside from the music, the car was completely silent, Castiel preferring to do instead of speak and Balthazar and Dean steadfastly pretending the other didn’t exist. The drive wasn’t a long one but by the time they arrived, the car was feeling pretty tense. Dean practically jumped out of the car, and when the two others followed suit, he noticed their outfits. Both were dressed up in track pants and matching gray t-shirts promoting some company. _Must be their  team_ , Dean thought.

By then it was 5:30. Cas and Balthazar had to go in a separate entrance to register so Cas gave terrible directions to where the front of the stadium. After getting lost several times Dean finally found the front doors and made his way inside. There were several different arenas, but the one in the center of the room was by far the biggest, and, so far, the only one not in use. Dean stood on his tip toes and strained his neck for a sign of Cas. He found Balthazar almost immediately, near the front, beating a man twice his size to a pulp. Needless to say, Dean was pretty impressed. And terrified.

When Dean found Cas, Balthazar didn’t seem nearly as impressive. While Balthazar had gone for sweeping hits that were strong enough to knock out a bull in one swipe, Cas was all speed and jabs. He practically danced around his opponent, ducking and weeving all of her attcks, and hitting a quick jab to random parts of her body. The third time he did this Dean recognized the place he hit as a pressure point he learned when he was younger, and suddenly Cas’ fighting style made sense: he tried to look like all his talent was in his speed, but really he was using pressure points to systematically hurt his opponent and seem incompetent. Of course, most of the people at this tournament knew Castiel for the incredible fighter he was, but the thought was still there.

Cas was onto his third opponent after only 10 minutes. It was a proper competition so with each win, the next opponent was harder than the last. However, every competitor Dean had seen besides Cas had been given a fight between breaks, while he had been going back to back. Something seemed funny about that . Dean turned to ask one of the other onlookers if that was something that happened a lot, when he noticed a competitor slipping a ref some money. Even though he hadn’t done too much research on fighting besides watching videos of Cas fight, Dean knew who that was. Raphael. Castiel’s biggest competition. He turned back around just in time to watch Cas deliver the knock-out blow, what looked like a small poke at the ribs. Cas walks to his corner and takes a few sips of his water before Raphael jumps onto the mat. Dean squints. Oh yeah this is a little more than suspicious.

Before Castiel has time to even get his breath back (from what little he lost), he and Raphael are fighting. Raphael had clearly had a long break before fighting Castiel and was using her replenished strength to give everything she had. And Castiel was doing just fine—until she got him in the ankle. Cas couldn’t just shoot around her any more and it seemed to Dean like he had lost when she turned him around and kicked him hard in the back. But just as quickly Cas was back and fighting as if she hadn’t even touched him, but the falter in his left step every once in a while gave away his pain.

Dean was so enthralled by the fight that he didn’t even notice his phone buzzing. Cursing, he pulled it out to see his brother’s name and was about to hit talk when it cut out. He sent a quick text telling Sam that it was really too loud to talk in the arena and turned his attention back to the fight.

And that’s when he saw it. Castiel’s shorts had slid down his hips from all of his sweat and  it had revealed his mark. A mark that looked insanely familiar. Like too familiar. With a sort of dreadful curiosity, Dean reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys to the impala. Even so far away from such a small mark it was clear that they matched. But that couldn’t be right. Dean shook his head. No that couldn’t be right. It was just a coincidence. He put his keys back into his pocket and continued watching the match.

 

 

 

Sam was freaking out. This girl kept bumping into him everywhere, and he really did mean everywhere. She’d even shown up in the boys bathroom at his high school! She never said anything, just kind of collided with him and then walked away, but it had happened enough times for Sam to know that it had something to do with him. But today it was getting a little too weird.

See, Dean had already left to go see Cam’s (or something’s) fight, and Sam had planned to just spend the entire day working on facts to memorize that he could use for debate. He had been about half an hour into his work when he heard a crash from the alleyway next to his window. At first he thought it was just some hungover college student trying to use the fire escape to get back in, but it was suddenly to silent for that. Putting down his notecards, he edged around the room to look from behind the curtains and onto the street. On the fire escape, two floors below Sam, was that same girl. Okay, that was  where Sam drew the line.

In a split-second decision, Sam stepped opened the window and stepped out onto the fire escape. From all the times that he had bumped into her, Sam knew that he was a good foot taller than her, and about 100 pounds heavier, so he wasn’t exactly worried about her overpowering him.

“Hey! Do you mind _not_ coming up here?”

The girl froze. Slowly she stared up at him with big eyes, but she didn’t move or reply to Sam’s comment.

“Hello? Creepy girl who keeps running into me? Don’t you think this is going a little too far?” Sam shouted with as much bitchiness at a teenage boy can put into something, which it a lot. The girl squeaked, and then ran down the fire escape and out of the alley. Unfortunately for Sam, when he had leaned over the railing, his shirt had fallen enough to show his mark, seeing as he had washed off the makeup on it the night prior. Becky now had seen with her own eyes, what she believed to be her mate. Sam was just afraid of commitment that’s all. She could show him what he was missing, what she would give him, at his mate. But she would do it in a way that was more conventional, if that was what he really wanted. Turning the corner out of the alley, she thought up different traditional ways that she could express her love to him.

Sam sighed in relief. Hopefully she got the message. He thought he had been pretty clear. Ducking back into his apartment, Sam picked his phone up off the desk and called Dean. At this point she was being creepy enough to warrant telling his brother. But Dean didn’t pick up and when he said he couldn’t talk, Sam decided that it wasn’t really that important to tell Dean. There wasn’t much she could do to him anyway, considering how small she is. Maybe Sam’ll tell him when Dean gets back. Letting out a big whoosh of air, Sam sat back down to finish his Debate notes.

 

 

 

Back at the arena, Dean is hollering like a madman. Cas and Raphael’s match had been a dirty one but Cas had eventually one by jabbing her in the throat and then punching up _hard_ under her chin, giving her whiplash, and taking her out of the competition. Castiel had then readjusted his slipping shorts, grabbed his waterbottle and bag, and headed over to where Dean was standing. They had walked around the grounds talking, until Cas was called back for the final round, since he had already beat enough competitor’s to secure himself in the top four fighting rounds. He had breezed through the first fight and now Dean was watching him hit the shit out of Balthazar for first place, and it was awesome.

When Castiel delivered the knock-out blow to his friend. He looked into the crowd with his normal stoic expression. He searched the crowed for Dean’s face, and when Cas saw him shouting praise like a crazy person, he smiled. It may not have seemed like much but if Balthazar hadn’t been unconscious he would have stared with his jaw to the floor. Castiel had been forced to participate in fights and although the rush he felt after a fight felt amazing, hurting someone so badly that they were unconscious didn’t. Unfortunately, the rush was addicting, and Castiel soon became used to the guilty-good feeling, but never enough to smile again until the next morning, when the fight wasn’t nearly as fresh in his mind. Maybe Cas would invite Dean again next time, he didn’t think Dean would say no.

Balthazar was taken over to the medics quarter, stationed against a wall of the building. Almost every cot was full but Balthazar and Cas had been around the block enough times to know how to hit a person strong enough to knock them out, but weak enough that they were up and running in no time. Sure enough, after a little water and some british swear words, Dean, Castiel, and Balthazar were making their way back to Cas’ red jeep.

“Cassie,” Balthazar began, “I know I just arrived but I need to take a couple hours to do something so could you just drop me off at this address— its right there—so I can get everything sorted?”

Cas nodded. “It is not far from here. I will drop you off and then drop Dean of at his apartment.”

The car ride was completely silent again, except this time there were no awkward tension or glares. Cas found the place that Balthazar wanted to be dropped off at, and as soon as he was out of the car, Dean was hopping into the front seat. Balth simply rolled his eyes and walked into what looked like an ordinary office building. Weird.

Cas drove to Dean’s apartment and as he rolled to a stop in front of the complex, he realized that he didn’t really want it to end yet. Clearly something about college was making him needy. Maybe he just had to make friends. He could always try talking to Ash. Or maybe take that boy up on his offer to play baseball. Hell, at this point even inviting Gabriel felt like a good idea.

“Hey, Cas…”

He shook himself from his memories to pay attention to what Dean was saying.

“Yes, Dean?”

Dean fidgeted for a couple seconds. “Um, nothing, I was just wondering when our next tutoring session will be. I still have a long way to go if I want to pass the class.”

“Of course, Dean. I will find out how long Balthazar is staying til and then we can work together after he has left.”

With that Dean smiled and got out of the car. Castiel stared until Dean was in the building, then he sighed. He didn’t like this new feeling of loneliness.

And it was odd. He had never cared before and suddenly, he was desperate for affection. Something didn’t seem right about it. He wondered if there was something wrong with him. But how do you treat a sudden case of desperation?

When he drove back to his dorm room, Ash was at his computer. Cas had tried to fend off all conversations possible with his roommate, and after a while Ash stopped trying to start them, so their room was usually silent. However, Castiel still had trouble with his new computer and he figured if he needed to figure something out using one, asking Ash for help would be far more effective than trying to it himself. But he didn’t know what to say. Did he apologize for not participating in any of the conversations? Cas didn’t know. Besides, he wasn’t trying to start a friendship with Ash (at the moment), he just  needed Ash to do something for him. And no apologizing would change the fact that he was only talking to Ash because he needed something. But he really did need help.

Castiel clenched his fists and walked stiffly over to where Ash was. Ash turned around and gave him a confused look.

“Um… hi Castiel”

“Hello.”

Ash shifted in his seat. “What’s up?”

“I am selfish, but I need your help.” Castiel replied honestly because he didn’t think it would be anything but cruel to pretend he wanted friendship. Ash cracked a grin.

“Well, hey, at least you’re honest.”

“I think something’s wrong with my emotional state.”

Ash furrowed his brows. “Like how?” he asked slowly.

“I have missed my friend when he was not here and I’ve never had that occur before. Also, I find that I am almost desperate to gain new friends, but I have been fighting the urge.”

The frown lifted off of Ash’s face as he raised his brows. “Hey man, not to worry. I think you’re just a little homesick.”

Castiel shook his head. “I have never felt the need to be close to anyone for more than one hour. The only person I used to be able to tolerate was Balthazar, but when he went off without me I was fine. Now I’m not. I assure you that something is wrong.”

Ash pressed his fingers to his lips and started rubbing his face. He was contemplative for a moment before he swiveled around and started searching the internet. After several minutes he made a noise of recognition and beckoned Castiel forward without turning around to look at him. When Cas shuffled forward, he saw a page with symptoms of MPI, or Mate Proximity Illness. Castiel stared at the screen for a moment in shock. He had the symptoms, all of them. It made sense. But he couldn’t seem to wrap his head around the fact that he had finally found his mate. Or, well, he was close to his mate.

MPI is a rather rare disease, and it usually only happens with a very strong connection between two mates. What happens, is the mates get in close contact (within five feet of each other) but aren’t truly ready for each other, so the brain changes to make the person mature enough to accept the mate. This mainly happens with sociopaths and psychopaths, who lacked understanding of the feelings of another person. Since they wouldn’t be able to understand their own mate’s desires, the brain would try to make the person more willing to connect with others.

Castiel guesses it makes sense that this would happen to him. He was never good at empathizing with others and he never really wanted to be around them. It would make sense that his biology was trying to change this for his mate. There were two good things that came out of this anyway. 1) Castiel was extremely close to finding, and being, with his mate, 2) When he found and fully completed the bond with his mate, his biology would return to normal for every person besides the mate. That way, Castiel wouldn’t be so desperate to be around Balth and Dean anymore.

He looks at Ash, who has a full blown smile on his face. Cas shifts uncomfortably.

“What?”

Ash rolls his lips into his mouth in a poor attempt to stop his smile. “Nothing, I’m just happy for you, my friend. But since you’re gonna be craving all that human contact, you won’t be able to turn down going down to the park, will you?”

Castiel stares at him. Its true. Now that he realizes what is happening, he can tell that this need for contact has slowly been getting worse. Since he knows what’s happening now, the urge to turn down contact will be harder because he will be more aware of his condition. In short, he really really wants to say yes. Purely from the way Cas is glaring, Ash revels in his victory, and leads the way to the door. One part of Castiel is extremely annoyed at this sudden dependency, and the other is ecstatic over Ash’s willingness to hang out.

They return later that evening. Over all, Castiel enjoyed his time spent with Ash. However, he knows that they can’t truly become friends until he bonds with his mate so he can figure out if he himself enjoyed the time or if he was forced to. They come back into the dorm room with smiles on their faces and Castiel drops into bed almost immediately. He had been around people all day and even with the MPI, it was starting to wear on him. He was just falling asleep when Balthazar burst into the room, looking furious.

“Castiel James Novak! Why would you not tell your friend, your oldest, and until recently ONLY friend, that you got MPI! What went through your bloody mind to decide to not tell me? I had to find out from your fucking ROOMMATE!”

Castiel stared at him, confused and more than a bit embarrassed. He glanced over to Ash only to see him shrug apologetically. Looking back at Balthazar, he tried to explain what had happened but found that he couldn’t. Once someone realizes that they have MPI, the symptoms become a lot stronger. All Castiel could do, tired as all get out and as desperate for connection as he was, was hold his arms out. The anger melted out of Balth and he toed off his shoes and kicked away his pants before climbing into bed and wrapping his arms around Castiel, who immediately snuggled as close as possible with a huff of annoyance.

Balthazar chuckled. “You really do have all the weird things happen to you, Cassie.”

Cas growled. “Shut up, Balthazar.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll call my university and explain. They’ll let me transfer for the time being so you have someone you’ve known for a while close enough to help you whenever things get rough.”

“Where will you stay?” castiel’s muffled voice asked from where it was pressed against Balth’s shoulder.

“Right here, my friend. You may have only tolerated me at times, but you have always been one of my best friends. Besides, there is always the risk that you don’t get enough affection and the MPI progresses to quickly. It could kill you. You know that. Your body will try so hard to make you care for others that your heart strings literally snap.”

Castiel growled again. Then he spoke loud enough for Ash to hear. “This knowledge stays in this room. Don’t tell the entire student body about this. I don’t want the attention.”

Balthazar snorted. “That’s the problem. You do want the attention. You need it. But we won’t tell. I’ll make up a different reason for my prolonged stay.”

Ash spoke up, “I only told Balthazar because you needed someone and I heard you speaking to him several times on the phone. Plus I saw him yesterday and knew he was in town and would be able to help. I promise I won’t tell anyone else, my man.”

Cas sighed in relief, and, somehow, snuggled closer to Balthazar. He was asleep in seconds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh jeez. Two months. I can't believe i hadn't updated in two months. What happened to me updating every week? I don't even know. well, here are my life updates and sorry excuses 
> 
> Well, I was lazy, that much is obvious. For that I am horribly sorry. I like the story but I had asked another writer if I could write off of her story line and I felt so bad that it was straying so much that I kept putting off writing. That, and I felt like my writing wasn't up to snuff. But the best way to improve on writing is by actually writing so here I am! (sorry it took me so long to realize something so blatantly obvious).
> 
> School was also a major source of stress (I'm going into senior year and HOLY FUCK LIFE DECISIONS) but now I'm back and feeling a lot better ( I got a 4 on my AP and a 2080 on my SAT and a B in chem-- seriously who sold their soul for my success???)
> 
> Also, if anyone wants to hear more about me visiting Thailand just ask! I didn't want to bore anyone but if you want me to I will talk your ear off about it. 
> 
> I have several more chapters written so you can expect an update every Monday again (fucking finally amirite?) Alright, well, see you next week! :)


	6. Doctor's Appointments & Vanilla Milkshakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thirty minutes later Castiel found himself seated in an examination room, a doctor checking his heart rate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Monday monday monday!
> 
> Guess who held up on her word?  
> THIS GAL!

The next morning Castiel woke up wrapped around a very disgruntled Balthazar, and he could see why. Balth was almost completely fallen off the bed because Castiel kept pushing closer in the middle of the night, and Balthazar kept backing up. The only reason Balth wasn’t laying on the ground right now was because Cas had such a tight hold on him.

“I didn’t get a fucking wink of sleep. I hope you’re happy” he grumbled.

Cas didn’t know what to say. Frankly, there wasn’t much _to_ say, so he just pulled Balthazar up and over himself so if Balth tried to back up, he’d be against the wall, and not on the floor.

“This might be worse.” Balth commented wryly, but he snorted and opened his arms for Cas to get repositioned in anyway. “Hey, Cassie, don’t get too comfortable. We have to go to the clinic this morning.”

Cas shifted so he could glare at Balthazar. “I think its pretty obvious I have MPI, Balth.”

“I know,” Balthazar sighed. “But I’m hoping its something less worrisome. And if it is MPI, then maybe the doctors know something that can help.”

“Bonding with my mate would probably be a suggestion.”

“I meant something else.”

Thirty minutes later Castiel found himself seated in an examination room, a doctor checking his heart rate.

“Okay Castiel, from what you’ve told me and what I’ve seen, you do, in fact, have MPI. Do you know all that this entails?”

Cas shook his head. He knew that eventually he would die a painful death without his mate, but a person had to have MPI for years for that to happen. The only thing he knew right now was a feeling of loneliness. Balthazar had been told to sit in the waiting room so his presence didn’t skew the results, but Cas felt loneliness all the same. At the moment the only emotion that might have truly been his own was the guilt that the only reason he missed Balth was because he had a disease.

“Well, MPI is not the worst disease in the world. In fact, many people consider it a gift. However, you need to know that many people will suddenly seem more caring and trustworthy than they actually are. My best advice is to try and stick to the people you have in your life as of right now and only trust the people that they trust. Right now it might sound odd, but I don’t want anything to happen to you. Also, try and be careful. We don’t know as much as we’d like to about MPI, but we do know that the only cure we have right now is finding your mate. Alright, I think that’s it. Any questions, Castiel?”

After shaking his head, Cas left the examination room and walked quickly over to Balthazar.

“Well?”

“I have it. I have MPI.”

Balth sighed. “Oh Cassie. What are we going to do with you?”

They left the clinic and hopped back into Cas’ jeep. It was around lunch time so he figured they’d just go to a McDonalds on the way back to his apartment. However, a little sign caught Cas’ eye while they were driving and he turned down that way instead. There was a little restaurant called the Roadhouse and Cas thought that it sounded perfect.

The Roadhouse smelled like Heaven. Balth led Cas to a booth near the back and a waitress handed them a couple menus. The place was rather dirty and pretty dark but, from the looks of the food on the other patrons’ plates, it was delicious. Burgers and milkshakes seemed to be the hot commodity, so Balth and Cas each ordered one. Their waitress, a girl named Jo, looked really familiar to Cas and he was trying to place where he had seen her before when Balthazar cleared his throat.

“I’m just going to call my college. Sit here until I get back, alright?”

Cas sighed. “Yes, Balthazar. I was not planning on going anywhere.”

With that Balth was out of the restaurant and Cas took to staring at the other people and the rest of the diner. It was clear that it was meant for more of a night crowd with pool tables and a bar but that didn’t seem to stop anyone from coming at any other time of the day. Castiel was just starting to feel itchy and ready to look for Balthazar when the front doors opened to show Dean and someone else that Cas had never seen before. The waitress jumped up out of her seat behind the bar to give Dean and the other boy a big hug each. _Oh_ , thought Castiel, _I must have seen her at college_.

He continued to stare, watching Jo swing her arms wildly while recounting something crazy that her boyfriend did. “You should have seen it! Right through the table like it was paper. I laughed so hard vodka came out my nose! And then, the other guy gets up and—“

A woman came out of the back and, with her hands on her hips exclaimed “Joanna Beth are you gonna keep disturbing our customers or are you gonna do your job?”

Jo blushed as swiveled around to pick up two drinks that had been waiting on the bar and hurredly brought them over to Castiel. They looked like regular old-fashioned vanilla and chocolate milkshakes that were in 50s movies with the whipped cream and cherries. Cas gave her a quick smile before taking a long sip. He closed his eyes and groaned in delight. Suddenly he heard a chuckle from across the bench.

“Balthazar, you have known of my adoration for vanilla milkshakes for quite some time. I thought you had gotten past finding it amusing.”

“Well, ‘M not Balthazar so that might be one reason.”

Cas’ eyes flew open. Dean and the other boy were slouching across from him with matching smirks. Castiel stared at Dean for a couple seconds before a cough dragged his attention over to the other boy.

“Who are you?”

“This is my brother, Sammy” Dean replied. “We live together. Sam, this is my tutor, Cas.”

Sam raised his brows. “You’re the tutor?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I thought you were a girl.”

Cas stared at him, perplexed. “What gave that impression?”

“So, Cas, when is Balthazar leaving?” Dean jumped in. His brother always said weird things about him and Cas had a tendency to take things a bit too literally. Overall it would be a bad combination and Dean really enjoyed being tutored by Cas, who was shifting in his seat awkwardly while trying to answer the question.

“He isn’t going back for a while. Actually, he stepped out several minutes ago to call the college and try to stay here for a while.”

“What, why?” Sam asked.

“Umm… well, he… found his mate?”

At that moment Balthazar returned to the table.

“Who found their mate?”

“You did.”

“I bloody well didn’t. I’m not giving up orgies because you couldn’t think of something better to say.”

Dean snorted. “If you didn’t want to tell us the reason, Cas, you didn’t have to.”

Cas shifter over to let Balthazar sit next to him and then shrunk down in his seat. He felt both immensely pleased and embarrassed. With all of the people, the MPI was especially vocal, at least Cas assumed that was why it was making him feel so much warmer and tingly than usual. While blurting out the real reason would be simple, Cas didn’t want to be coddled by anyone more than was absolutely necessary.

Balth leaned over and whispered in Cas’ ear. “By the way, my college was very understanding but they need proof of your illness before they will send over transcripts so I told them we’d do it after lunch, alright?”

Castiel nodded. Balthazar was just about to kick the Winchester brohers out of their booth when Sam started up a conversation. It was about something or other in theaters right now that Castiel had no intention of watching but they got into it pretty quickly. Dean leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table.

“So, Cas, how you liking the diner so far?”

“I am very glad that I stopped here. The milkshake is wonderful and the food on the plates in here look delicious.”

Dean smiled. Castiel felt something flutter in his tummy and frowned. This was not the time for him to be getting crushed on people. Sure, everything seemed brighter and happier and everyone seemed so nice that Cas just wanted to be in the middle of a big group hug, but getting crushes was a little far. Thinking about it deeper, Cas realized that everyone looked beautiful to him. MPI was rather ineffective at helping someone find their mate, he mused. Blinking, it occurred to Cas that he had probably been staring silently at Dean for about a minute. He leaned back quickly and Dean chuckled.

“Milkshakes really get you goin huh?”

Cas rolled his eyes and forgot all about his realization in favor of getting his plate from Jo, who had just arrived with four meals. It turned out that Dean and Sam were such regulars that they had a specific item that was always served to them.

“Yeah. This place has been great over the years. The Harvelles are like our family. We’re in here all the time. Have you met Jo’s boyfriend, Ash? I think he’s in your grade.”

They seemed to all get along pretty well, Sam or Cas steering the conversation whenever Balth and Dean got into an argument over something, but after they had finished eating and were sitting talking about this thing or another, Cas found himself smiling from ear to ear. He quickly stopped that in its tracks of course, but a corner of his mouth stayed upturned for the rest of the day.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Usually I would write something interesting that has happened to me but absolutely nothing has happened. Y'all are probably so relieved.
> 
> Just one thing, if any of you live in America, please vote for 'David and Leeman' on America's Got Talent! The trick that they did where they took away the judge's ability to read is a trick that my dad invented and they are good friends of mine :)
> 
> That is all.


	7. Hit Me Baby One More Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cas sat in his jeep, more frustrated than he ever remembered being.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry. This chapter is mean. I'm so sorry.

Cas sat in his jeep, more frustrated than he ever remembered being. Balthazar and Ash were being insufferable. They weren’t letting him go anywhere without at least one of them there and Castiel was starting to lose it. In reality the MPI was making him feel happy and glowy but he was starting to be able to tell the difference between the illness and his own self, but it was still a fuzzy line. This, however, was all him.

Balth had decided about three weeks prior, and several days after the MPI confirmation from the doctor, that Cas couldn’t even go to the bathroom on his own. Even Ash thought that was a good idea, and Castiel knew him to be lax on both precautions and rules. The MPI had told Castiel to feel happy and loved with the constant attention, but the more Castiel was able to differentiate between himself and the sickness, the more annoyed he got. He still cuddled Balthazar every night (just because he was annoyed that he was needy didn’t stop him from actually being needy) but Cas was getting sick of the closeness.

So, in a fit of insanity, Cas slipped sleeping pills into both Balthazar and Ash’s drinks. After checking about 42 times that they were okay and tucking them in to bed, Cas went outside. Now, here he was, sitting in his jeep, with no idea what to do. Groaning, he threw his head against the steering wheel and promptly jumped back upright when the horn blasted into the evening air. He flung his hands up frustratedly and decided to just drive around until he decided on what to do with his temporary freedom.

 

 

Dean was fucked. Ever since going to see Cas fight he would wake up in the mornings hard as a diamond. Cas was in all of his dreams. Most of the time they were just making out and Dean was still hard like he had just had dream-sex with a stripper. He wasn’t even _into_ dudes. It was odd though. There was almost a wrong feeling. Whenever he woke up from one of those dreams, he felt this odd feeling in his chest, the kind someone gets when they had a particularly odd dream where it feels like the chest is tingling and aching, but not in a good way. It felt like something was wrong.

Ultimately it was what had spurred Dean to strengthen his bond with Cas. There was a sort of anxiety running through his system until he checked that Cas was alright. He and Cas had gotten back into tutoring and it was as good as ever, better even. They seemed to understand each other almost effortlessly. However, while Dean got more personal, Castiel had almost gotten shyer. Balthazar followed him everywhere and he was always touching Balth in someway and somehow looked incredibly frustrated about it. Dean thought it was kind of adorable. Which made him feel even more fucked. Dean got up from where he was chilling on his bed and went to wash his face in the bathroom. What the hell, he might as well have a shower while he’s at it. He pulled off his shirt and looked at his mark in the mirror. It was an odd mark to have. Marks were supposed to tell the wearer something about their mate’s character, something that is important to them, so that they could weed out the people whose personalities didn’t match the mark. A handprint told him nothing. It didn’t matter though, Sam got his years before he was supposed to so Dean just assumed it was a family thing to have weird problems with their marks. Plus, the handprint was weirdly large.

After Dean showered he decided to go walk around. He didn’t have anywhere to go and he was itching to do something. Stepping out of his apartment, he went down a couple back alleys before stepping into a sleazy bar. He wasn’t old enough to drink yet but this place didn’t care. He took a spot in a corner and surveyed the room. Dean just wanted to relax and a smoky bar with too loud music and good beer seemed as good a place as any. There were some people sitting at a table playing poker and yelling loudly, but the rest of the place was rather quiet, girls and guys flirting, and men in suits off their jobs. Dean went up to the bar to order a drink and caught the eye of a gorgeous girl with skin darker than dark and blood red lipstick. She winked and him and he smirked back. Maybe she could be part of his relaxation too.

She made her way over to him slowly, eyes glinting more than her sparkly skirt.

“Well hey there.” Dean said, leaning with his back against the bar “How ya doin’?”

“Just looking at the scenery” she replied with a smile and dragged her eyes slowly down his body. Dean took that as an invitation to do the same. She had her hair in a classic afro, with a head band pulling it away from her face, and a plump waistline that hit all the curves just right. In a tank top and sparly blue skirt, she was to die for. Dean often went for leggy blonds but he couldn’t deny that this girl had quite a few things going for her.

“I’m Dean.”

She smiled again. “Well, _Dean_ , is there anything keeping you here?”

He smirked. “Not that I can think of no.”

She hooked one of her fingers in his belt loop and tugged. Dean barely had enough time to throw some cash for the drink on the bar before he was pulled out into the alley.

“My name’s Leighton by the way.”

Leighton pushed Dean up against the brick wall and started to unbutton his shirt. Then she stopped.

“So. Dean. Tell me, do you like to fight?”

Dean was thrown off for a second by the question. He’d been expecting something more along the lines of ‘Do you wanna go back to mine?’

“Not really. I have a friend who does though.”

She giggled. “Oh. Well now I wish he was here instead of you.”

“What?”

“Hey! What are you doing with my _girlfriend_?”

Dean groaned. Of course she had to be one of those girls who liked to make her boyfriend jealous. He held his hands up but quickly put them down again when it showed how open his shirt was.

“Hey man, I didn’t know she was taken.”

The guy pulled Leighton off Dean. “I don’t care _what_ you thought. I care about your consequences!”

He punched Dean square in the nose and his head snapped back into the brick. _Okay, ouch_ Dean thought. Suddenly, there was a guy on either side of him holding him down while the boyfriend started pummeling him. Dean looked over to see Leighton on her phone.

“Fucking really?” he yelled at her.

She giggled again. “It makes the sex good.”

After a while, Leighton’s boyfriend stopped punching and the two guys holding him threw him to the ground. For a second Dean thought that they were going to walk away and leave him to pick himself up, but that would have been to easy. The first kick hit Dean in the chest and he heard a rib crack. He cried out and tried to curl in on himself.

“No no. You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to try to have sex with my girlfriend either. What? Were you expecting her to take off your shirt, give you a couple hickies, and let you fuck her? No. But I’ll be nice. You can have one of those things.”

With that he leaned down and ripped Dean’s shirt the rest of the way open.  “You can have your shirt off.” He put his face next to Dean’s “Just a secret, between you and me? Beating someone to death is so much more fun when you can see the bruises forming.” He pulled off the shirt the rest of the way and exposed Dean’s mark.

“Oooooo. A hand print. How… mysterious.”

“Alistair” Leighton whined, “Can you hurry up already? I wanna fuck.”

‘Alistair’ didn’t reply, too busy tracing his finger over the mark while Dean tried to shift it out of reach.

“It looks a little big to be a girl’s hand, dontcha think?” he crooned. “I got myself a little faggot.”

“Its not—its not a man’s ha-nd” Dean gasped out.

Alistair quirked his eyebrow. “Oh? Well, whatever you say, I’m going to keep hurting you.”

With that, he stood and brushed himself off before stepping back and motioning for his men to continue kicking him.

 

For some reason, the only thought that filled Dean’s brain while he was being hurt was Leighton’s comment ‘Well now I wish he was here instead of you.’ Now, Dean did too. Cas would be able to fight them all off. Dean could throw a good punch but Cas would have them all down in seconds and that’s what he needed. A particularly hard kick to his lower back had him arching up with a pained gasp. Through the haze gathering around his eyes he could see Alistair alternating between kissing Leighton and staring hungrily at Dean. He pushed Leighton off him for a second to go over to Dean.

“You know Dean, after my boys have had a little fun I’m going to kill you.”

“No you’re not.”

Alistair whipped around and blocked Deans view of whoever said that. He could barely hear the voice over the ringing in his ears. To Dean’s surprise, Alistair was flung back and knocked unconscious. His savior was… Castiel?

 

 

 

Cas had been driving around trying to think of something to do before he gave up and parked in a random lot. There was a labyrinth of alleys here that Cas had been wanting to look at since he arrived. Why, he didn’t know, but he always found places like that interesting, and quiet.

He looked up and the moon shining through a fire escape before continuing his walk. It was a very calm nigh and although Castiel still felt guilty about drugging his friends, he needed the time to himself. He wandered aimlessly until he heard someone crying out in pain. Rushing to the commotion, Cas saw Dean laying on the ground getting beat up.

“You know Dean, after my boys have had a little fun I’m going to kill you.”

“No you’re not.”

Castiel stepped forward, furious, but when he went to hit the man coming at him his mind did what it had done during his last competition but a thousand times stronger. What Cas never admitted was that during the fight he had felt terrible every time he fought an opponent. At the time it had been a little twinge, but this was full on _screaming_. He punched the goon in the face and then doubled over as the MPI kept screaming _wrongwrongwrongdon’thurthelpwrongwrong_. Cas straightened, twice as determined to fight as he hit Alistair and then kicked his leg back to hit Leighton from where she was trying to pick up a gun and shoot him.

He strode forward and there was a moment when he glanced to Dean, bruised and bloody, and suddenly the screaming was gone. He knocked out the last guy with a simple jab and ran over to Dean, who managed to whisper a weak _Cas_ before closing his eyes.

Castiel quickly assessed the damage. He had been fighting all of his life, he knew what a death sentence in the form of bruises looked like and Dean didn’t have any. Dean would be fine. He would be in pain, but he wouldn’t need to stay more than the night at the hospital. Cas sighed in relief and went to pull Dean up, one hand on his shoulder while he got Dean in a better position to pick him up. Once Dean was in position, he went to pull his hand away and froze. Dean’s mark, perfectly fitting under Cas’ own hand, was glowing a brilliant white. With shaking fingers, Cas pulled up his own shirt to find his own key was glowing with the exact same intensity.

Dean was his _mate_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to change it... but I didn't like anything else that i wrote. So i had to keep it. You may say 'oh that's okay at least Cas found his mate!' yeah, no. I don't make things easy. But I don't like making them too hard either. This is where the dilemma arises...
> 
> okay as for the posting on Tuesday. I started school today and last night I thought it was sunday (because you tend to start a school week on Monday) and then I realized in school and i wanted to slap myself across the face. I will be able to tell what day it is in the future (hopefully) so i think we won't have this problem anymore.
> 
> Also, in news that nobody cares about, I got my hair cut! It went all the way down to the top of my pants (not highwaisted they're actually lowriders) and now its half and inch above my boobs. I use sooooooo much less conditioner in the shower holy shit.
> 
> That is all.  
> (I'm so sorry. There will be a happy ending. Promise Promise Promise. Pinky swear. This is the worst. Literally the minor homophobic language was for him saying 'fag' that's it. it goes (mainly) uphill from here! (aside from the initial pain of the beginning of next chapter shhh)
> 
> Anyways, I love you all my darlings.  
> Have a good rest of the week :)  
> Same time next monday?


	8. Stucco Ceilings & Overheard Phone Calls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Castiel had hoped things would be different. He had expected someone smaller, less rough. It made sense though that his mate would be strong as well: they’re supposed to match. But instead, he’s sitting on an old white plush chair stained with—well he wasn’t sure exactly—and waiting for the doctors to tell him things he already knows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> who's ready for a boring filler chapter??   
> No one? ...sorry

Castiel had hoped things would be different. He had expected someone smaller, less rough. It made sense though that his mate would be strong as well: they’re supposed to match. But instead, he’s sitting on an old white plush chair stained with—well he wasn’t sure exactly—and waiting for the doctors to tell him things he already knows.

The scenario kept playing in his head. The man saying he was going to kill Dean. The henchmen kicking, and the girl. The girl the girl the girl. She was clearly in a romance with the male, Alistair, but that wasn’t it. She looked almost familiar. And when Cas had gone into the fray, almost in slow motion, Cas replayed her expression. Widening of the eyes. Fear. But he had been outnumbered. Had she known who he was? Yes. That was it. There had been recognition. She must have seen him fight.

Castiel was going to tell Dean about the marks. He had to. Dean may be injured but Cas was _sick_ with some horrible debilitating stupid incomprehensible annoying—

“Mr. Novak?”

Cas jerked his head up and rose quickly to follow the doctor to Dean’s room, nodding absently as she told him all the things he already knew. They turned the corner and Cas could suddenly hear Dean.

“No, I’m fine. Could you let me up please. No I don’t need to be sedated. Just—“

Cas rolled his eyes and walked into the room.

“Dean, if you continue moving around you will not give your rib the rest time it needs to allow you to be out of here tomorrow.”

He glanced at the clock that read 3:27 am. “…Today.”

Dean stared at him for a moment in something Cas uncomfortably recognized as awe. He shifted from side to side for a moment before walking across the room, grabbing a chair, and plunking down next to Dean, who relaxed into his starch bed. The nurses that had been trying to push Dean back into the mattress while another had been preparing a sedative, all relaxed, and walked out of the room. Cas stared at his hands for a moment, trying to think of what to say so that Dean wouldn’t be put under too much pressure. That meant that he wouldn’t be able to mention the MPI.

Dean beat him to the talking though. “Thanks, man. I’d probably be dead if it weren’t for you.”

“Your welcome, Dean.”

Dean cleared his throat. “Y’know. I just wanted to have a little fun. Get a little drunk and maybe a little ass.” He lifts an eyebrow and smirks at Cas, but it seems fake. “There was this girl there. Holy shit, she was smoking, and I wanted to get some, but she was just using me as some pawn to get her boyfriend horny.”

Cas lifted his hand and awkwardly patted Dean’s shoulder. He just wanted to tell Dean about the mark but right now, it wasn’t about him. Dean was fiddling with a corner of the bed sheet when he opened his mouth again before frowning, “that guy, Alistair, he said something about my mark.” Dean rolled the sheet between his palms and Cas thought his heart was going to give out. Here’s his chance to tell Dean, who was rolling up the sleeve of his hospital gown to reveal the handprint.

Cas swallowed. He hadn’t had a good chance to look at it. Marks are very important at describing someone’s character. Cas had always assumed his would have boxing gloves, but he loathed hurting people with a passion. The mark should have said something about his personality, and Cas had always wondered what would be the most important part of himself. What would be the piece of him that the bond would put on his mate. He had never even entertained the idea of it being just his hand. That didn’t say anything about himself. It was almost infuriating.

Dean slowly held his hand up to the mark, squinting like he was comparing the size. “He said that the mark was a man’s hand. He called me a fag. I’ve never gone for anyone but girls. I don’t like dudes like that! Why would my mate be a guy if I find dicks disgusting? Besides, who would want to be gay anyway? Right?”

Castiel nodded. _Okay. That’s fine._ he thought to himself. _That’s fine that’s fine. I can do this._

“Maybe you’re just mated to a very tall girl?” Cas responded numbly. Dean was upset and had been hurt. He deserved someone to humor him and Cas could do that for him _He could do this_.

Dean thought for a moment. “Yeah. That makes sense. Thanks, Cas. I mean, I’m not gay and marks are supposed to give you something you actually _want_.”

Castiel nodded. It’s all he felt he could do. Dean didn’t want that. Of course, he couldn’t give up, but he would have to go about letting Dean know in a way that would make Dean more open to the idea. After all, if Dean never accepted the mark, Cas would die in the most painful death known to mankind, and Dean would follow in the second most painful. Mates lived for each other.

“Dean?”

“Yeah, Cas?”

He looked Dean straight in the eye. “I’m pan Dean. I _would_ want to be gay, because liking dick is part of my sexuality.”

Dean’s eyes widened. “Shit, Cas, sorry. I was just ranting. I’m not gay but its fine if you are.”

Cas shrugged. That was the best answer he could have hoped for at that moment. He had thought Dean would be more aloof after that but they continued talking as if it was any other day.

They were half way through arguing about whether or not invisibility would be a cool power to have when Castiel’s phone went off. He pulled it out of his pocket while still explaining to Dean that he’d be _blind_ while invisible but cut of abruptly when he saw who was calling. Balthazar. Cas was so busted.

He quickly excused himself and went out into the hallway.

“Castiel James Novak, where are you!!?”

Cas winced. He didn’t want Balth to be angry but he needed his space. “I’m sorry—“

“Oh, you’re _sorry_? You drugged us, Cassie! I’m doing this to help you and you go and slip pills into my food? The nerve—“

“Balth, I’m at the hospital.”

That shut Balthazar up real quick. “Cas?”

“I don’t know why I drugged you, okay? I just needed some space. Its not me that’s in trouble anyway. I was walking down the alleys downtown and came across these guys trying to beat Dean to death. Balth, when I grabbed him, his mark _glowed_.”

There was a long pause. Cas knew what it meant. Balth had hated Dean right away and having his best friend and his mate at odds would be a serious problem. “How did he react?”

“I didn’t tell him.”

“You didn’t _what_?” Cas winced again “Cassie, you have MPI, the decision is practically made for you! You have to tell him! You could die if you don’t!”

“But he started freaking out about how his mark’s too big and how no one would want to be gay!”

“Does he know that you’re pan?”

“He does now. Besides, I can’t just walk in and tell him that he’s my mate and about the— _other stuff_ , I mean, I haven’t even told my family!”

“…You told me that you told them last week!”

“I didn’t know what to say!”

Balthazar sighed. “Okay. Here’s what we do. I come pick your bloody dumb ass up and  you call Gabe. Then we figure out a way to get Dean warmed up on the idea that his mate has a dick. That’s all I’ve got this fuckin early in the morning.”

Cas smiled. “Thank you Balthazar. You are being kinder than I deserve.”

“You’re sick, Cassie. You deserve a lot better.”

They said their goodbyes and Cas went back inside the room to tell Dean that he was leaving. Dean gave him a weird sort of smile and told him it was fine because Sammy was on his way. Cas grabbed his coat and said one last _Goodbye Dean_ before he made his way down to the lobby.

Dean watched him leave and then strained to hear his footsteps retreat into the general sterilized silence of the hospital before he let his head drop onto his pillow. Cas hadn’t been far enough away and Dean had heard the whole conversation, or Cas’ half anyway. Cas said that they were mates. Him and Cas. Mates. Dean was suddenly reminded of Cas’ mark looking exactly like the keys to his car. But it couldn’t be. Cas might be open but Dean was a woman’s man. Cas probably just had a crush on him and wanted to believe that they were mates. Dean stared at the stucco ceiling with his thoughts chasing their tails until Sam arrived and put it all out of his mind.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright alright here we are again! Another week another terrible chapter.  
> Things have been almost stressful on my end but this stupid little story brings me far to much joy. This story's actually going to be quite a bit longer than I had originally thought it would be but I'm liking where I want it to go even though it may not be going there as quickly as I was hoping.  
> FYI, this isn't going to be one of those stories that ends as soon as they get together, there is a plot outside of their will they won't they and its being set up (you can probably see it I'm not one for subtlety but hopefully its not bad).  
> Anyway, I kinda wanna hear your guesses for what's going to happen in later chapters, I wanna know exactly how transparent I am.  
> Btw, my new tumblr is holyandhell.tumblr.com and I'm on there constantly if you ever wanna just talk. :)


	9. Ruthless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If there were three things that Cas wanted more than anything it would be Dean accepting their bond, him not having MPI, and Gabe not coming over in three days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pssssssst... didjamissmee?

Castiel glanced from his phone resting on his thigh to the wall clock to the door to where Balthazar and Ash were glowering at him from across the room and back down to his phone again. He was going to call Gabriel. He was going to call Gabriel. He had to. Sighing, Cas plucked a bit of courage up and pressed Gabe’s number on speed dial.

It was almost Thanks giving and Cas hadn’t talked to any of his family members since they threw him a going off to college party and the longer he waited to call, the more he dreaded calling. But it had to be done, and Cas grudgingly admitted that Gabe deserves to know.

Gabe picked up on the third ring. “Hey lil’ bro! Haven’t heard from you in ages! What’s up?”

Castiel froze. He couldn’t do this. He hadn’t talked to Gabe in _months_ and now he was just calling to say that he was sick. What kind of person does that? A cruel one. Just as he was about to completely panic and hang up, someone coughed. Somehow Balthazar and Ash were glowering even harder than before. Cas gulped and tried to tamp down his anxiety enough to talk to Gabriel.

“G-gabe?”

There was silence for a heartbeat before Gabriel started speaking, now concerned. “Cas? What’s wrong? What happened? Do you need me to come over?”

Cas shifted. No point in prolonging the inevitable. “I have MPI.”

“ _WHAT?_ ”

Cas flinched.

“I have several midterms for the next three days that are no exceptions, if you aren’t there you fail, but as soon as I am done that I am driving up.”

Castiel sat up straight, “No, Gabe, its fine you don’t need to—“

“Who else knows about this? Is there anyone else there with you?”

“Gabe—“

“Is there _no one_ helping you?”

A firm hand pulled the cell phone out of Cas’ shaking hand, and he could barely contain a sigh of relief as Balthazar took over the conversation. Both Balth and Ash were furious at him for drugging them. They had deemed all of it necessary to keep Cas safe but he had felt like he was going mad. Maybe he was a little mad to drug his best friend and roommate. They didn’t deserve it. Although they were angry, they were still being kind and giving affection to make sure Cas would stay healthy. If anything, it made him feel worse. He felt so guilty for doing everything that he did last night and he knew he would have to make amends. Balthazar was used to his ‘fits of insanity’ but Ash wasn’t so Cas was going to have to work harder to properly apologize.

Cas was pulled out of his thoughts with his cell phone landing in his lap. Balthazar sat down next to him and wrapped his arm over Cas’ shoulders, and Cas instantly leaned into the embrace. Apparently feeling guilty made him needier. Great.

“Gabe will be here in 5 days.”

Cas nodded. He doesn’t know where Gabriel will stay or what will happens when he arrives, but he hopes that everything will turn out for the best.

“Oh and he knows about Dean.”

Cas whipped his head around so fast a couple bones popped.

“Why would you do that?”

Balth shrugged but there was an air of mischievousness. Ash took that exact moment to sit down on the other side of Cas, so close that their legs were touching the entire way. Cas looked uneasily between their two smirks.

“Consider this” Ash snarked, “payback.”

Cas groaned and put his head in his hands. Stupid. He was so damn stupid. He really should have foreseen this.

 

 

A day later Dean and Cas found themselves seated across from each other in their normal café. Things seemed rather fine, especially when Dean came in with a huge grin because he was up to a C now. He was actually passing. He was _actually passing_. Holy shit.

Because of this sudden revelation, they both stopped working earlier than normal to talk and dick around on Cas’ computer. Dean was halfway through showing Cas a video of something weird that he couldn’t wrap his head around before he noticed that his inbox tab was flashing. He paused the video, with more than a few complaints from Dean, and saw yet another email about a fighting tournament that would be held later that day. Cas had thought that he wouldn’t fight anymore for a little while because of what the MPI did. But the temptation to feel strong was overwhelming. Dean could have been killed and Cas was loathe to let something like that to happen to any of his friends while he was sick. This would probably help him stave off the MPI, or at least he hoped. Maybe if he could overcome that symptom, he could overcome the whole thing. Then he would have a much larger amount of time to convince Dean they were mates, before he would be bed ridden and die.

He pointed it out to Dean. “Would you like to come with me?”

Dean looked at him surprised. “You’re doing that? Didn’t you get enough fighting two days ago?”

Dean knew that Cas hated hurting people but Cas had to do it. He craved the strength that he lacked now. He didn’t want to be a slave to his illness. And if he couldn’t fight his DNA, he would just pummel someone else’s. It was so different from before. He used to hate hitting others, but they’re just games. He used to be powerful and now that it was being torn away from him, he came to the unfortunate realization that he missed it. He missed being strong and aloof and not giving a shit but those are all perfect reasons for getting MPI.

“Alright.” Dean shrugged after a moment of silence, “I’ll go if you come to my friend’s party later tonight.”

Cas frowned. “You shouldn’t be partying for a few more days. You need the rest. Someone tried to kill you.”

“It’s no big deal. Are you bringing Balthazar?”

“I guess so. Ash will probably come too.”

“Ash? Like Ash who’s nicknamed himself Dr. Badass and loved computers and his mullet?”

Cas’ lips turned up. “That is an accurate description of my roommate, yes.”

Dean stared at him for a moment. “No fucking shit. Huh. Ash is a friend of mine. Now I think I’ll come for sure.”

They looked at each other for a few seconds and Cas got a stupid idea. If Cas touched Dean’s mark, then he wouldn’t be able to deny their bond anymore. He just had to figure out how to pull that off. It was a simple spot to touch easily and accidentally, but Dean had started wearing even more layers than usual and Castiel didn’t know whether or not the light from the mark would even glow enough to show through his clothing. He reached out to put a “friendly” hand on the man’s shoulder but Dean cleared his throat, turned to the laptop, and clicked to watch the rest of the video.

 

 

 

Dean didn’t even want to think about the fighting tournament. It had been horrifying. Cas had won, of course, but that was part of the problem. Dean had honestly feared for lives throughout that whole debacle. Not even hanging out with Ash helped his mood. For one thing, everything Ash said seemed to have some sort of double meaning. He’d had this look in his eye that he usually only got when he was planning an elaborate prank. Plus, Dean had been immediately wary when Ash first caught sight of him and stared like he was a zombie before saying “Shit! Dean? You Dean? This Dean? I should have seen this coming!” Something was up.

They were all at the party now, Victor’s place, and somehow all of Dean’s friends had already somehow met Cas before. Every story about some random kid on campus doing something weird but really cool turned out to be him. Dean would have been right in the middle of that fray had it been any other party, but he couldn’t get the memories out of his mind. Cas had been _ruthless_.

Balthazar hadn’t fought in the competition, choosing to stand alongside Dean and Ash. They must have made a real spectacle of themselves every time Castiel went up to fight; three fully grown men standing in the middle of a cheering crowd, with horrified wide eyes and jaws on the ground.

The worst thing was Dean knew that for some reason fighting hurt Cas emotionally. Every time he had thrown a punch to save Dean in that alley had been followed with a flinch and curling over. His eyes had been feral and in pain and it took him a good couple minutes longer than it should have to finish them off. But then he had gone into the arena, and Dean regretted not keeping him from fighting the second the bell rang. He didn’t hit to stun, he hit to concuss. He didn’t flit around and jab, he bulldozed in and pummeled. Each break had him looking weaker and more hopeless, but the next round would be even more brutal.

And now Cas was sitting surrounded by Dean’s friends as Dean sat on a kitchen stool with a Jack Daniel’s baby he was nursing back to health.

 

 

Cas was having a great time. Even though the fight hadn’t helped the MPI like he had hoped, the party was great. There were people everywhere and it was easy to get lost in a sea of people or become Moses for a moment and rock the center of attention like a god. People he’d run into over the semester were there and somehow it had started a competition for who had the coolest story of the first time they met him.

The host, Victor, had convinced Cas to join his baseball team, and celebrated his victory by getting Cas horrendously drunk. Balth stepped in only after Cas got drunk enough to start singing. Somehow, through the years of knowing each other, that had become the sign that Cas was nearing dangerous levels of intoxication. They had been sitting on the couch next to each other for half an hour, Balthazar force Cas to drink ridiculous amounts of water, when Sam sat down next to them.

To say he looked freaked out would be an understatement. His eyes were fixed straight on Cas like if he looked anywhere else the apocalypse would start. Cas tilted his head to the side, waiting for an explanation.

“Don’t tell Dean,” Sam pleaded, “But there’s this girl who keeps following me everywhere and I’m starting to get really scared. She tried to come into Dean’s and my apartment the other day and things have been getting worse. I just figured if I sat next to the two fighters she wouldn’t come too close.”

Of course, Becky hadn’t actually been near Sam at all that day. Sure she had been thinking about him, and dreaming about him, and maybe even masturbating to the thought of touching his hair, but she hadn’t physically been near him for a good three days. No, Sam was here for some solid future brother-in-law speaking.

Sam wasn’t an idiot. The second he had seen Dean’s mark he had know that his mate would be male. The palm was boxy, the fingers were wide, and it was huge. But Dean didn’t want to think about that, and had gone on the whole day to talk about what she would be like. Sure, he hadn’t seen Cas’ mark, but Dean had talked about Cas like he was god. No, not god. Dean talked about Cas like he was an angel that had fallen down from heaven just for him. Sam had known that Dean was developing strong romantic feelings, but the way he had talked so freely about Cas had left Sam with the impression that ‘Cas’ must be a girl. When they had gone to the Roadhouse and low and behold Cas didn’t have lady part (nor identified with them), Sam knew. And he had a strong feeling that Cas did too. Now he just had to stage his plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow I'm lame. First monday missed I had the migrane from hell and the second I didn't have internet but I totally could have posted on a different day.
> 
> Anyway its almost 1 am and I've got my second ever college lesson tomorrow (scary) and i'm tired (well i'm not but its one am and i feel like i should be)
> 
> This chapter isn't anywhere that I wanted it to be before I posted it but it got longer than i had anticipated, so next week is just gonna be the rest of the part and shit idk. who knows. I plan things and then scrap them at the last possible second. idk.
> 
>  
> 
> ALSO, i don't know if anyone noticed (probs didn't or there might have been a hilarious comment) but i forgot that i was having ash and jo go out in the first(?) chapter and last chapter I wrote them as brother and sister.... i will fix that, never fear. They will be less incestuous.
> 
> Well I love you all and I hope you guys are great because i can't keep it together so at least one of us should have their lives together. Its definitely not gonna be me...


	10. Sweet Dreams are Made of This

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If it wasn't for that stupid almost kiss and that nightmare.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey hey hey hey hey hey (i love you)

“No please! I’m so sorry! Don’t hurt me anymore, I’m begging you!”

Chains rattled as what was left of a person hanging from hooks tried to shift away.

“Stop just stop it just make it go away!” the person sobbed. “PLEASE!”

Castiel lifted his hand up to his face. The area around the knuckles was starting to bruise, and there were parts where the skin had split and were showing bone. The figure was doing its best to curl in on itself, but Cas wasn’t done yet. His sickness was still there. Inside. And he had to get it out.

Looking to his left, he spotted a tray. It was empty except for a roll of bandages. Cas moved deftly over and quickly wrapped his hands up. He snipped the end of the roll, and stared at his hands again. They looked off. Like they were someone elses. A whimper drew his attention. The figure shifted again, but it was poorly lit, wherever they were, and Castiel moved his hand to grip the front of the person’s bloody shirt and tug forward.

Dean.

Like a gunshot leaving the barrel, Castiel was thrown from his position in front of Dean and was standing in the doorway. Where he had been Dean now stood, and the figure was someone that Castiel didn’t recognize. The empty tray was now filled with needles drills and shards of metal and glass.

This is your fault. You are rejecting him. You are rejecting your bond.

“I’m not rejecting anything!” Castiel screamed. “I am trying! He doesn’t want me!”

He will become this if you do not fix your mistakes. We are here for you, Castiel. Your sudden desire to cuddle, what you call your sickness. We are trying to help you.

“Well you’re doing a terrible fucking job!”

Without the MPI you will never get your mate. You would have died alone. Do you want that!

“No!” Castiel punched his hand against the wall, only to find the scene changed and his hands no longer bandaged. He sank to the ground in the middle of his childhood home. He sobbed. “No…”

Then try harder.

  
  
  
  


Dean woke up crying. He had been… somewhere…. in his dream, and he had been…. fuck he couldn’t remember. The more had tried to hold onto the dream, the more it slipped away. There was only one thing that he could picture clearly: Castiel’s face.

Sighing, he got out of bed and made his way over to the shower. When he scrubbed, he tried to scrub away the memories of the day before. Cas had been something else, and not in a good way. He scrubbed his legs. Even Balthazar had been concerned. He had tried to pretend that it was all perfectly normal but Dean had seen the glanced. He had seen the thinly veiled concern. He scrubbed his chest. And the party had been worse. Cas had gotten smashed and had been smiling and living it up as the center of attention and just being so goddamned adorable-- and hadn’t looked for Dean once. Sure, Dean hadn’t exactly been making himself super available by hiding in the room over secretly competing with Cas in a drinking contest, but it would have been nice to see something. And Cas had loved talking to Sam, and while it did warm Dean’s heart to see them chat, Dean wanted in.

Dean wanted in. He wanted to sit next to Cas and talk to him and make him laugh and do shots together. And it sucked to realize that. You see, drunk thoughts are unfiltered thoughts, and Dean loves to talk plastered. So, of course, at some point during the night Sam pulled him up into an upstairs bedroom and the clever bastard made Dean talk. And boy did he say some things that he never even realized he had thought. Mainly about Cas. And how the idea of Cas being his mate was seeming like a fact not a possibility. And sure maybe like 75%  (99.9%) of Dean’s dreams were about Cas, sometimes including things they could get up to together, but Dean wasn’t about to give up on his Busty Asians.

Sam probably tucked Dean into bed with a huge shit-eating grin with a few of the things Dean confessed to.

And then there was the kiss. The almost kiss were Dean almost kissed kissable lips that were attached to a very kissable dude. A very kissable dude whose name starts with the letter C. Cas had been in the bathroom next door to the room that Dean had been sitting in and Sam had gone downstairs to get water when Dean decided that they had to talk. But the second Cas had opened the door, the only thing Dean could do was stare. And slowly lean forward, inching toward the prize that he wasn’t sure if he wanted yet. But Sam stepped in. He had pulled Dean away, muttering something about how if there first kiss was a drunk mistake they’d never get their shit together. And now here Dean was, in the shower, starting to scrub a patch of skin on his shoulder raw.

Dean eventually made his way out of the shower and checked his phone. There was a text from Cas confirming their studying together later that day. Dean sighed. He had to get it together before then otherwise there might be to many cracks to not give Cas a chance to slip through the chinks in his armor (not that he didn’t do it anyway).

  
  
  


So far their studying was rather uneventful. Cas had shown up on time and started up a conversation but Dean seemed rather distant so he let it slide. He felt rather distant himself, what with the parts he remembered from his dream last night. It had been rather terrifying and Cas had been shaking for a great part of the morning.

But now the studying was over, and, even though they were both so out of it, they decided to take a walk around town together. They were just weaving through the streets, no particular place in mind, and Cas felt rather content. Sure, the MPI was still a boulder looming over his head, and he'd woken up Balthazar several times during the night because he had been crying over the damage he did to the other competitors the day before, but Cas felt like he was okay. It was purely because Dean was his mate, but he didn't maind that it was just something so base so long as he got to keep the feeling. Well, Cas also wanted the feeling of sticking his dick up Dean's ass but that didn't seem to be coming around any time soon. Cas kept eyeing up Dean’s clothing, frustrated that there were so many layers. It was chilly at this time of the year so Cas couldn’t just reach out and grab Dean’s arm to show him what they were to each other. But a boy can dream. And it seems like today God is answering wishes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So just to answer the question before it inevitably comes, the voices are from the same things that make the marks. Basically, in the headcannon that i randomly made just now, gods were getting tired of their people never having someone (whether platonic or otherwise--look at me being asexual inclusive... there might be more of that) so they worked out the marks. But when there were people like Castiel who would never have managed to take the mate, even with the mark, they created MPI. They are trying to get him to follow the instincts that will help him to live a happy life.
> 
> so yea. I spent this lovely monday night by going to a poetry mic night at 9 on a school night when I have to stay at school til seven tomorrow (FUN) but it was so worth it i'm not even going to pretend to be sorry. Its every other monday and i think i might just read at the next one... who knows...  
> i'm also thinking of making a tumblr completely devoted to my poems. but idk.
> 
> this chapter is so short holy crap. There's so much i want to write but baby steps. Gotta get me to finish what i started and biting off more than i can chew isn't gonna help any.
> 
> anyway I love you! keep on keeping on


	11. If it weren't for that damn rollerblader...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything went out of control rather quickly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey hey how you doin

Everything went out of control quickly. One moment, Cas was staring at Dean’s shoulder and wishing he could make it glow through all of his layers, and not thirty seconds later, they were surrounded by a group of people.

It started with a little boy running into Dean and hitting him with an icecream. It had splattered all over his shirt, but then the boy hit him squarely in the chest, and he started to go down. Cas reached forward and grabbed onto the end of Dean’s sleeve, pulling his upper arm out from his layers and leaving only his white t-shirt over his mark. To top it all off, there had apparently been a woman right behind Dean and Cas who was rollerblading, and she crashed right into them, dropping her water all over Dean, who’s last layer went see through like he was the winner of a wet t-shirt contest.

Cas stood about a foot away staring down at the mess that had occurred in the span of 5 seconds. The three people on the ground groaned and got up, Dean first, and then helping up the little boy, who was now sticky and with a scraped knee. The girl tried to get up herself, but she slipped, and pushed her hands right between Dean’s shoulder blades, and into Cas, who of course steadied him by grabbing his shoulder, and Dean grabbed the closest thing, which was the skin on Cas’ hip because the shirt had ridden up in the commotion.

Oh _shit_. The marks glowed blue not white, a clear sign they were unmated, and there was simply no denying it. Dean had never seen the light, figuratively or literally, and this sudden brightness was a confirmation that he wasn’t sure if he was happy about or not. But he sure as hell wasn’t going to figure it out surrounded by strangers. Strangers who were now chanting “kiss kiss kiss kiss.” Cas was horrified… and ecstatic, but mostly horrified because he knew that if he didn’t warm Dean up properly to the whole thing, then it’d never happen. But now Dean knew and there was no denying it. They were mates and he could pretend that they weren’t but they were made for each other.

Dean gulped. There was no out on a situation like this. And sure maybe it wasn’t the worst thing to happen but that didn’t mean he wanted it to happen now. Castiel looked at him for a long moment, before nodding once to himself and standing up straighter.

“Follow my lead,” he whispered.

Leaning forward, Cas put his hands on either side of Dean’s face, lightly cupping the flesh, but also making sure that Dean wouldn’t be able to pull away and ruin his plan. He slowly stroked his thumbs downward until one was completely covering Dean’s upper lip, and the other was covering to lower, before he surged forward, and make out with his knuckles. Dean sighed and Cas thought it was in relief. It wasn’t. It only took for Dean to be denied while sober to realize that he actually did want a kiss from Castiel, but  the younger boy’s acting brought him back to every reason it was a bad idea. It also brought him back to his anger. It wasn’t fair that he had spent all of his life until now (and technically still now) only having kissed girls and liking it that way. Why would he be partnered with a boy? And Cas was kissing him without his permission! Well he wasn’t kissing him but it was still too close for comfort.

The people around them were cheering when Cas pulled away. He thought that he had made it look very convincing, and was both pleased and upset with his success. He would never intentionally sabotage Dean but he had hoped that someone would be able to tell the difference and make them kiss right. Cas quickly grabbed Dean’s wrist and tugged him into a secluded alleyway. He took a quick breath before raising his eyes to meet Dean’s. Dean was pissed.

“What the hell was that?” he hissed, and Castiel flinched back. “I’m not gay!”

Castiel decided to be brave to Dean for once. “No, “ he said, “you’re not gay. You like girls. You are probably bi or pan.”

Dean’s face got redder. “I’m out of here.”

“Wait!” Cas cried, but as Dean turned around, he couldn’t bring himself to say anything but “Am I still tutoring you tomorrow?”

Dean grimaced but they did have a test that he needed help to study for so he nodded.

“But this never happened.”

  


The next day came and Cas was a bit of a nervous wreck. He’d had another nightmare of Dean being tied up and a voice telling him to hurry up and he just knew it had to do with his MPI. The added stress from yesterday’s incident and Gabriel scheduled to arrive any day just made matters worse. By the time Cas arrived at Dean's apartment to conduct the tutoring (the coffee shop was closed for whatever reason on Thursdays so they just went to each other’s place’s), he was practically shaking.

However, This particular Thursday there was a James Bond movie marathon at the student center, put on by the campus’ film club. Dean was already outside his apartment building and bouncing over to Cas the second he was in sight. He tried to wheedle Cas into going to see it instead of tutoring. 

“Come on, Cas, they’re classics, just like Shakespeare!! I can use the marathon to gather information for my comparative essay assignment.” Dean pleaded, arm around Cas’ shoulders. It seemed that Dean really was going to stay true to his word to pretend that the day before hadn’t happened, and it aggravated the now near-constant ache in Cas’ chest.

Castiel firmly shook his head. “It is a marathon, surely there will be more movies in an hour, Dean. Shakespeare first. You can do that half of the assignment.” He smiled at Dean, who stopped. 

“But, it’s Goldfinger. Please, Cas?”

Cas paused and the heat of Dean’s gaze and arm around him swayed him. Damn MPI. “Alright, but we’re meeting tonight.”   
Dean grinned and Castiel could tell he was about to explain exactly how thankful he was. But he couldn’t have that because Dean being kind to him made the ache worse, so he pushed him off and dismissed him with a simple “Have fun, Dean.” 

  
  


When Dean returned to his apartment, he found Cas standing outside the door. 

“Holy crap Cas, I didn’t mean you had to wait for me.”

“I didn’t know how long you’d be.” Castiel pointed out.

“Well that’s just more reason to not wait.” Dean unlocked the door. Castiel stared at his keychain, and sure enough, an exact match to the one on Cas’s hip sat on the circle of metal. 

When they were inside Cas fidgeted rather than opening up his backpack and getting out his study supplies. 

“Cas, what’s up? Something wrong?” 

“Dean. May I kiss you? Just once. Allow me one chance- the chance you’d allow any girl, have allowed many girls. If you are truly not interested, truly feel nothing, then we will forget this happened and remain Dean Winchester and Castiel Novak.”

“Cas, maybe you should lea--”

“I will not. I have never been with anyone, Dean.” Castiel reached out to Dean and grabbed his shoulder. “We do not have to be any different than we are now. Please do not discount everything. We were meant to be- perhaps not now. But God willed it.”

“I ain’t ever lived my life by what God wanted before, and if it weren’t for the marks I don’t think I’d even believe in God. Maybe not even with the marks.” 

￼Cas looked into Dean’s eyes and pleaded with all of the emotions he’d been feeling, trying to make Dean see, make him know that they were meant for each other.

Dean licked his lips and gave in. “Alright.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright alright.  
> Sorry for the not posting and things. Every other monday is open mic night and its amazing! I read my fake newsletter article titled 'Man amputates arm after touching unused tampon.' i know. comedy gold and you haven't even read it.  
> Last week was just the night before a calc 3 test and i'm sorry but education does actually come first.  
> If you remember i said i was going to make a tumblr just for my poems and it is partially up at spiritaminal.tumblr.com .  
> You can find the news article mentioned above. 
> 
> Anywhats, i hope you enjoyed it because now i have complete and utter free reign. But juje, when did you not have free reign? Well, I have been (very loosely) writing from a oneshot where the point was that you don't know what happens. So I had asked the original writer if I could use her story and make my own ending. Basically, her story is my story's beautiful skeleton. And I just ran out of bones. Now I'm going to just finish up fleshing it all out myself. But yea that last scene basically wasn't rewritten at all. I just had to tweak a few things to fit it in.
> 
> Well, I love you all! See you whatever next monday that I can get enough time to myself!


	12. Smooch & Scooch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alright. Dean said yes. Cas' eyes widened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> new chap new chap

Alright. Alright.

Castiel froze. He hadn’t dared believe that that would work. He had thought that Dean would push him away and never talk to him again but he had been so sick of waiting that he just pushed.

Alright.

His eyes flicked to Dean’s lips. They were pink and wet; it hadn’t registered yet that he was allowed to touch them. There were a few freckles around Dean’s mouth and Castiel wanted to kiss those too.

Alright.

Alright. Dean said yes. Cas’ eyes widened and he practically lunged forward to push Dean into the kitchen counter behind him. He leaned forward slowly, letting the warm breath from his open mouth glide across Dean’s lips. Even though the distance was so very close, he looked into Dean’s eyes before flicking them back down to his lips and then pressing sweetly.

The kiss was unlike any other Dean had ever had. There weren’t fireworks and time didn’t stop but it didn’t matter because the magic wasn’t around them, it wasn’t just an image flashing behind an eyelid: it was a whirlwind. The kiss was slow but Dean was panting like he’d just run a marathon and promptly had an orgy. The kiss was soft but Dean didn’t need bruising when he already had a mark. A permanent mark that undoubtedly belongs to Cas.

Dean sighed into the kiss and started giving what he was getting. Their lips slid slowly across each other, dragging, before Dean darted forward and niped at Cas’ top lip. He all but melted into Dean, crowding him back farther until Cas huffed and lifted Dean like it was nothing and placed himself between Dean’s legs from their new resting spot on the counter. Cas pressed forward even more and the kiss turned hungrier. Hands curled into clothing and Dean squirmed his lower half away because his dick was pressed against Cas’ stomach and he didn’t want to be obvious over how much its making an appearance over only kissing. But then Cas slides his hands up Dean’s shirt and pinches one of his nipples and holy crap Dean just learned why girls liked that so fucking much.

Of course, he couldn’t let Cas have all the fun, so he pushed his hands just under Cas’ shirt and brushed Cas’ key right as Cas prodded Dean’s handprint and it was like an explosion in their veins. They pulled apart with a gasp and Dean threw his head back so hard that he saw stars from hitting it so hard against the cabinet. Fingers immediately poked at the back of his head and he opened his eyes to see something almost as good as the shock to his system.

Cas’ chest was heaving and his hair was more of a mess that usual. There was a glint in his eye that seemed to be a mixture of triumphant and horny as hell. Dean could understand why he felt that way.

He took a big breath and let it out loudly, nodding a couple of times.

“Okay, yeah, we might be mates.”

Cas stepped up into Dean’s personal space again.

“Might be?” he growled and shit if that wasn’t hot.

“Definitely,” Dean panted, “we are-- definitely.”

Cas felt like crying from happiness. Dean finally accepted him. His MPI was singing with happiness and it brought a thought to his head. When would he be rid of his MPI? Going from refusing to kiss boys to admitting to having one as a mate was a huge step and Cas didn’t think that Dean would be up for another for quite a while. The MPI wouldn’t leave until they had sex and it couldn’t just be a simple blow job. It would be the exact moment that they both fully accepted their bonds-- and for most people that was sex. Sure for some it was just some hardcore cuddling but neither Cas nor Dean were wary of sexual relations overall. Basically, because Cas and Dean both got sexually aroused by each other (and Cas had felt proof of that against his stomach) so their final step would most likely be sex.

The whole process was rather complicated because it was different for every couple because every couple was different. There were many people who had no interest in sex, so the bond would be completed by something else. It was basically the final stage of acceptance. Because Cas and Dean were both male, Cas assumed that their final stage would be when Dean could no longer pretend that he wasn’t going to be mated to someone of the same sex for the rest of his life, and let Cas take him. And Cas would take him if Dean’s love of being carried and submissive had anything to do with it.

Yes, Cas had noticed. Years of training for an opponents weaknesses had allowed him to master little nuances in people’s body language. He was always squinting at people’s movements and then getting confused when someone’s gestures didn’t match up to the words they were saying. Dean did that a lot.

Cas realized that his hands were still touching the back of Dean’s head from when he had been trying to check for damage. Slowly he pulled away and stepped back to allow room for Dean to get off of the counter. They stared into each other’s eyes for a moment before Dean looked away and cleared his throat.

“So, studying?”

  
  
  
  


“CASSANDRA!”

Cas and Balth were awake in a nanosecond, pushing against each other to get out of dodge but both ending up tangled with a loud, sticky, squirmy brother named Gabe.

“Gabe you bloody bastard! Just--”

“--Cassie I missed you so much--”

“--Gabe stop touching my ear--”

“--fuck fuck your knee’s on my crotch, it’s on my crotch, ouch, fuck--”

“--just let me up, I’m serious--”

They all struggled against each other for another few minutes. Cas somehow managed to untangle his ankle and he tumbled to the ground with a grunt. He looked up to see ash looking down at him amusedly. Balth and Gabe were still struggling on the bed. Cas sighed and got up to go to the community bathroom down the hall and get ready for whatever Gabe was going to do.

When he got back Ash looked decidedly less amused by the whole situation and Cas had to wonder what happened. Gabe was messing with something in his hand and Balthazar was getting dressed. They all stopped and sat down seriously when they noticed Cas was back.

Oh come on

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy crap  
> today is the worst day ever. do you ever just have one of those days where all you want to do is just lay down and cry and sleep and not have to deal with responsibility because its literally making you sick? yea that was me. and my friend's birthday is on wednesday and i for whatever reason still cannot drive and my dads in las vegas so i can't just go to the store and i make a poster for her every year except i haven't started yet and i'm going to be at school til 7 tomorrow. And i have a group project for AP french due next week and i haven't even put an ounce of thought into it. and I started crying in class today because my teacher was absent because she was sick and the subs were rude and didn't do any of the things that she had wanted us to do in class. so she was angry with us and then we had to turn in our independant pieces on friday apparently but she accidentally said tuesday i guess so i didn't have everything printed because i thought i would just do it tonight but she started yelling and she said that if you didn't have it at that exact moment then you wouldn't get credit but then she asked who hadn't turned their pieces in and it was over half the class and she just got even angrier. Plus i had to try to explain to my english teacher today what asexuality was and he totally didn't get it and thought that i was stupid even though other people were backing me up and i wanted to stab myself in the face.
> 
> woo, now that that's all off of my chest...  
> i wrote a proper outline down for the rest of the story. before it was just little fragments in my brain of different places i wouldn't mind going with the story. fyi i don't end my stories when the couple gets together. this is only the beginning. if i had to guess id say we are maybe half way through? almost? idk
> 
> hopefully you won't have a day as sucky as mine :)


	13. Awkward...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean finds out about the MPI and Sam take Gabe on a tour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ANNOUNCEMENT AT THE END

Cas hadn’t thought any of this would be happening the next time he saw Dean. He had assumed that he and Dean would have at least been a little closer, not practically forced apart the second Gabriel slammed through the door. Now Cas was glowering at his brother, who had wedged himself, along with a very amused Balthazar and Ash, between Cas and Dean. Cas didn’t understand why Dean needed Gabe’s seal of approval; they were _soulmates_. He sighed, glowering, and shifted his attention to the tv.

 The air seemed to thicken when it came within five feet of the couch, suffocating the tv watchers in tension. Not a single person dared to so much as shift. Cas felt a little guilty. Dean hadn’t asked for this and hadn’t even been answered a single question. In fact, he couldn’t even open his mouth without one of the three lunatics violently shhh-ing him. Out of the corner of his eye, Cas tried to read Dean for any signs of discomfort. His shoulders were tense but not nearly as bad as they had been some of the times he and Cas had been tutoring.

 Sam barged in somewhere after the fourth episode in a row of something called “Antique Roadshow” and took one look at the awkward group on the couch before stopping short. Gabe rocketed out of his seat, glad for the interruption.

 “Well, howdy! You must be Dean-o’s little brother. I’m Gabe.”

 He shoved his hand forward and nearly punched Sam in the gut. Balth and Ash both stood up, stretching out their limbs, before making an exit. Cas stared down at his hands. Having both Gabe and Balth here was wonderful but he wanted more time with Dean. He was just starting to accept them being soulmates, and now Gabe was making a strong case for Dean to decide against doing so. Plus, Cas didn’t think he could handle much more of this MPI business before he would just lose it.

 He sighed, staring down at his hands. Warm fingers rested themselves over his and he quickly raised his eyes to meet Dean’s. Cas looked up to see that Sam had gotten Gabe’s complete attention. Dean nudged his shoulder.

 “Hey.”

 Cas’s lips twitched and Dean’s small grin widened. Their fingers were still intertwined but neither made a move to pull away or hold hands; they’d gotten farther than either of them had expected already.

 “So, Deanie-baby, what are your intentions with my brother?”

 They both jumped. Gabe was standing right in front of them holding on of his trademark lollipops. Sam wasn’t in the room any more and when both Cas and Dean looked for him confusedly, Gabe explained “he went to his room to get something for school.”

 Dean nodded. “Of course he did, the nerd.”

 “You never answered my question,” Gabe reminded.

 “Umm,” Dean said. “Well, he’s my mate--”

 “--Duh--”

 “--So it should be rather obvious where this is all going.” Dean finished off condescendingly.

 Gabe frowned, “But what are you planning to do about th--”

 “Dean did you go into my room?” Sam asked, returning with a confused look on his face.

 He shook his head. “No. I learned my lesson after last time.”

 Sam frowned.

 “Then why is my room suddenly spotless?”

 “What do you mean?”

 “Well, when I went to school, it looked like normal, but now everything’s better than new! It looks like an Ikea Catalog.”

 Cas tilted his head. “Maybe you just forgot that you cleaned last night.”

 Sam shrugged his shoulders.

 “It seems like something I’d remember, though. Well, whatever, it makes my life easier.”

 He moved off into the kitchen, “Do any of you guys want some water?”

 After they refused, Gabe turned back to Dean. “So?”

 “So what?”

 Sam returned and stood next to Gabe.

 “What did you plan to do about my brother’s MPI?”

 “HIS WHAT?”

 Everyone focused their attention on Cas, who flinched. This wasn’t supposed to happen.

 “Does he not know? Cas did you not tell him? Castiel _look at me right now_.”

 Cas slowly brought his eyes up to Gabe. He couldn’t meet Dean’s face, not after hiding that from him, but he could feel Dean’s green eyes glaring holes into his head. Sam was frozen, glass half way to his mouth, eyes darting from Cas to Dean to Gabriel. Cas new how this was going to play out. Dean didn't want to deal with the stress of all of it so he was going to kick Cas out. Then he was going to come to Cas with every possible way to maybe get rid of the MPI, all without making eye contact, and when it was over, they wouldn't talk anymore. It was simple.

 “Get out”

 Cas stiffened. He hated being right. Dean couldn’t deal with his lies. When he started to get up, he realized that his and Dean’s fingers were still tangled. Cas tried to quickly memorize the sight.

 “Cas, not you. Sit down. Sam, Gabe, get out. I need to talk to Castiel.”

 Gabe plucked the glass out of Sam’s hand and dragged him out the door.

 Dean tightened his grip on Cas’s fingers before yanking sharply. Cas let out a startled yelp, falling into Dean’s lap. Before he could scramble off, a hand wrapped around his waist and another tangled in his hair. Dean leaned forward, eyes flicking down to Cas’ lips, and back up again before pushing forward.

 Cas found himself on the receiving end of a fiery kiss. He floundered but soon put his palms on Dean’s shoulders. Dean’s hand in his hair slowly dragged down his neck and back before both arms slid around to Cas’s stomach. Dean pulled his lips away to scrape their stubble together. Being burned back was something he’d never had with a girl and he was surprised that he liked it. Dean pulled back to look at the redness building under Cas' stubble when he spotted an area under Cas’ ear just begging to be sucked on. Dean dove for it, sucking like a child with a milkshake, before deftly undoing Cas’ belt buckle. He glanced up and Cas still hadn’t noticed that this was progressing anywhere past making out.Thick fingers slipped under an elastic waistband, and Dean became fully hard just from hearing the startle gasp that came from Cas’s mouth.

 “ _Dean_.”

 Cas couldn't believe it. He'd thought wrong. Dean forgave him for hiding it all. Dean didn't push him away.

 Dean'd done this before, in theory, but jerking off another dude wasn’t something he thought a lot about. Dean settled for simply alternating between caressing and palming Cas’s dick. Cas hip’s were doing little jerks that were rubbing lightly against Dean’s. He was jerking off a guy. He was jerking off a guy. The heat in Dean’s stomach turned to ice but he had to keep going. Cas was sick because of him. This was the least he could do.

 “C’mon, Cas, I want you to fuck me.”

 Dean didn’t want to but at least like this they’d be able to complete it. Dean didn’t think he’d be able to come anymore. But it didn’t seem to matter either way because Cas was pulling back, confused. It was too fast for them. They'd never bond properly like that.

 “Dean?”

 He couldn’t say it out loud, so Dean just tried to pull Cas back in for a kiss, but he knew there was something wrong now.

 “Dean, stop”

 Cas put his hands on Dean’s chest and leaned back, trying to get a good read on Dean’s expression, but by pushing back, his butt slid and hit Dean’s now very soft dick. Cas looked down, staring at Dean’s failure, before looking back up again, his face a mask of confusion and hurt.

 “You need to not be sick anymore,” Dean tried to explain.

 A wounded noise came out of Cas’s throat. He threw himself off of the couch before backing up several more feet.

 “Cas. I can help. You don’t need to be sick! I can help!”

 “Dean Winchester,” Cas growled, the effect marred by the unzipped pants and devastated expression, “I am not some-- some-- pity fuck! I’m not just someone you feel bad for. We’re soulmates!”

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Cas was sick and Dean could help. Nothing else mattered, but when Dean said as much, the other man let out a sob.

“I’m not going to rape you.”

Dean shook his head. “I consent.”

“Because you think you have to! If I wasn’t sick we wouldn’t be doing this”

“But you are!”

“We will have sex only when you want to have sex for you. Not because of my sickness.” Cas demanded, “please, Dean, I couldn’t live with myself if I did this to you. We aren’t going passed kisses until you’re ready.”

A tear fell out of Cas’s eye and rolled quickly down his face but Dean tracked the movement as if it was molasses. It slid to the underside of his chin, before falling off and landing on the corner of the coffee table. Several more tears joined the first, before Cas managed to get his legs unstuck enough to run out of the room.

This was definitely not what Gabriel wanted when he had told Dean about the MPI.

 

 

 

 

Gabriel had found a new set of wants. While he was pissed at his brother for hiding his issues, he couldn’t help but be swept up in his conversation with Sam. He was so mature and intelligent yet goofy that he and Gabe managed to hit it off perfectly. They wandered the streets in hopes of avoiding whatever was happening in Sam’s apartment, and Sam had decided to turn himself into Gabe’s tour guide. After a couple hours of exploring what their great town had to offer, Gabe had to admit that the city had it’s perks. What he was not too sure about was the girl that he thought had been following them for the past half hour. He kept ducking into shops weaving between shelves and dragging a confused Sam around before slipping out another exit only to see the same girl less than five minutes later.

This situation was starting to grate on his nerves and Sam was starting to get bored by the lack of answers, when he suddenly saw a perfect escape route, the male’s locker room at the gym. Gabe grabbed Sam’s hand, slipping their fingers together, and tugged him into the fray of half naked, sweaty male bodies.

“Gabe!”

He ignored Sam in favor of maneuvering them out the other side before quickly doubling back and pulling them back out the entrance they came in. When he didn’t see the girl again 10 minutes later, he knew he had thrown her off. Gabe let out a sigh or relief and slowed down to a normal pace.

“Seriously, Gabe, what was all that about?” Sam asked.

Gabe turned to him. He couldn’t lie about this, seeing as it was probably Sam that she was following. Gabe stepped forward so they were nearly touching chests and stood on his tip toes to attempt to reach Sam’s ear. It wasn't something that everyone on the street needed to hear about. Something like that, if that girl really was following Sam around, then Sam would be in danger. The police might even have to be involved.

“Uhh, well, there was this--”

“Oh my!”

They turned to see a group of older women smiling at them. One of the ladies stepped forward.

“I’m sorry to interrupt but you two just make such the cute couple! How long have you been together?”

Both boys immediately flushed, and Gabe slid down from his tip-toes to step back. He looked at Sam to see him bright red and rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. This was definitely going to make things weird for them if they continued to attempt to become friends and they both knew it. They could deny it but the lady probably wouldn't have listened. They discretely made eye contact before Gabe nodded, agreeing to just roll with it.

“Uhmm,” Sam coughed, attempting to clear his throat and some of the awkwardness, “not for very long at all?”

The woman laughed.

“Well that’s just proof that you two are meant for each other!” she crowed, making the two men blush even harder.

Gabe managed to snap out of it just long enough to put his own little touch on the moment.

“Yup!” he cried out, before slapping Sam’s ass, making him yelp, “we really do.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi. i'm not going to say sorry because it doesn't really mean a lot when you say it for the seven billionth time. things haven't been great on my end. My aunt has cancer again and this time it's permanent. And then she collapsed on thanksgiving. So, not fun.
> 
> ANNOUNCEMENT: I promise to have this story finished by the end of the year. Yes, I am aware that that is in a month. I may end up updating more than once a week. I'm just sick of putting it off over and over again. There is more in this story. We're about to get into a shit ton of drama, which will then be cleared up and what not.
> 
> That's all I've got really. Also, next week is finals week, so, stress. I can't wait to be done with high school. On to worse things. I ordered coal soap for a stocking stuffer from etsy and it makes me giggle when I think about it.
> 
> Well, have a good night (or morning).


End file.
